


One Plus One Equals Three

by SecondSilk



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-12
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 43,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondSilk/pseuds/SecondSilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I stole the inital idea from Nomadic Writer's Donna the Vampire Slayer series.<br/>This story also owes a bit to Marcus Rowland's Conversation from a White House Parking Lot.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter the First

**Author's Note:**

> I stole the inital idea from Nomadic Writer's Donna the Vampire Slayer series.  
> This story also owes a bit to Marcus Rowland's Conversation from a White House Parking Lot.

Donna looked up instinctually as someone passed her desk. Toby nodded in greeting as he passed. Donna had always had an odd relationship with Toby; he was always there making sure she was keeping Josh in line.

"Morning, Toby," she said, a little wearily.

Toby didn't grunt his greeting and move on, as he usually did on Monday mornings.

"If you want a minute with Josh," she continued, "It'll have to be after his meeting with Scott Matthews, which isn't till after Staff."

"Actually, I was wondering if I could have a few minutes to talk to you?"

Donna didn't ask why. Toby was not a man of whom one asked such questions. If only because he might answer with that sentence structure. She simply nodded and said that she was free once she had sent Josh off to his meeting after staff.

"You okay, Donna?" Toby asked. His unusual display of concern didn't trouble Donna's clouded mind.

"I haven't been sleeping," Donna explained. "Nightmares."

"Not real, though," Toby said, dismissively.

Toby did leave then. And Donna wouldn't have told him the young woman who committed suicide in her dreams seemed very real.

She sighed and continued typing up the notes for Josh's meetings.

Josh arrived back from the staff meeting mid-rant. Donna let it wash over her; it wasn't really as if Josh wanted or needed an audience.

"Toby had gone to the zoo again. Leo was horrified, we still need that speech. No one could say anything, not Leo, or even C.J. I certainly wasn't going to. I try to avoid Toby as much as possible."

"Yes, Josh," Donna said automatically. But she had a strange premonition that Toby had been thinking about her.

After three and a half years in this office with this man, Donna was able to send Josh off to his meeting with the correct folders without having to think about it. She approached Toby's door cautiously. Last time he had asked to meet her like this it was to tell her that the President had MS. Barely a week ago.

Toby had been running in tighter and tighter circles since the announcement to run for re-election. He was on the phone when she arrived.

Ginger gave Donna a sympathetic glance as the other assistant opened the door.

"She's too old," Toby shouted into his phone.

Donna raised an eyebrow, but Ginger could only shrug.

"I don't think you understand me," Toby was saying, "or at least I don't understand you. I performed the rituals, Ripper. I have no doubt. And Quentin told me to call you."

Toby noticed her standing in the doorway. Donna made the gesture for 'I'll come back later.' But Toby made the gestures for 'come in' and 'close the door.' So she did, and perched on the arm of his couch.

"How old are you, Donna?"

"Almost thirty, Toby," Donna said. She answered before she realised that only a few people would get an instant response.

"Did you hear that?" Toby asked the phone, "She said almost thirty. That's at least, what, thirteen years too late? Hang on, I'll put you on speaker."

There was some protest from the man on the other end of the phone.

"I don't care what you think your problems are, Pokey," the phone said, in an English accent, "your problem is that you don't listen. Faith isn't dead. Buffy's death doesn't mean anything to the line. I don't care how many of what spells you did, it's not as if you've been practicing."

Donna waited for somebody to say something she could understand. Toby ignored the man on the phone and turned to her.

"Your dream, Donna, the nightmare."

"What?"

"Tell him what happened in your nightmare. The one that wasn't 'not real'," Toby added.

Donna decided that she had a little leverage and could gain a measure of control.

"Who am I talking to?" she asked.

"Rupert Giles, of Sunydale, Donna Moss, senior assistance to the Deputy White Chief of Staff," Toby said.

The Englishman ignored any point Toby may have tried to make.

"A pleasure to speak with you, Ms Moss," Giles said pleasantly.

"Good morning, Mr Giles," Donna responded.

"Your dream, Ms Moss. Toby seems to feel it was important."

Toby's demeanour certainly said that.

Ignoring the oddity of the situation Donna answered the Englishman's request. The way one would answer a professor.

"I had it Saturday night, and again yesterday. There was a tall, rickety tower. And a ball of light in the air next to it. A young woman, maybe twenty, threw herself into the light. It wasn't nice, but there was something honourable in what she did."

"Can you describe her, or any other people there?" Giles asked.

"She was short, blonde. There was a girl, dark hair, she was crying, and there was an older man with glasses, I think they were family. A man with bleached hair and a woman, a friend, short, red hair."

Donna shook her head to clear the clouding images.

"I can't remember anymore," she apologised.

But she did remember some of what those people had been feeling. She wanted someone who cared for her the way the older man had cared for that woman. And she wanted to be able to do what the woman had done.

"Rupert?" Toby asked after a moment.

His tone was gentle and encouraging. Donna didn't think anyone would believe her if she told them.

"Yeah. It's the dream. But, Toby, you didn't hear me. I believe that you have a Slayer, but I don't know how. I agree that it's irregular, but Buffy's death should not have Called a new Slayer."

"Why?"

"Because she died, for a few minutes, about four years ago. That Called Kendra, when Kendra died, Faith was Called, and Faith is still alive."

"Are you sure?" Toby asked, clutching at the first question that came to mind, hoping the answer would lead them somewhere.

"Donna dreamed Buffy's death, Pokey, but yes, I'm sure."

"What happened to her, when she died the first time?" Donna asked.

"Her friend revived her, CPR and mouth to mouth."

"And she was still the Slayer?" Toby demanded.

"Yes. We didn't think that a new Slayer would have been called, until Kendra…"

"Holy—!" Toby stopped when he realised that he didn't have anything to join the expletive to.

"Donna, go, now, to C.J's office. Tell her the Watcher's Council have no idea what's just happened. She'll hide it, but if she knows at all what you're talking about, bring her here."

Donna left. Regardless of how out of depth or wierded out she felt, this was something she could do.


	2. Chapter the Second

Donna returned to Toby's office with a sceptical C.J in tow. C.J closed the door behind her, but she was waiting for Toby to tell her what the joke was. Toby ignored that.

"The man on the phone is Rupert Giles, he was Watcher to the Slayer in Sunnydale. Buffy died last night. Rupert, this is C.J Cregg, Press Secretary to the President of the United States."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr Giles," C.J said, "but I don't understand what is happening."

"C.J Cregg?"

"Mr Giles."

"Claudia?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I knew Miles Winters, and Bernard Crowley."

C.J sunk onto the arm of Toby's couch. Toby waited for Giles to say something more; his tone suggested a warning. Donna waited for C.J to show some sign of what had happened. The air was still.

"Okay," Donna said forcibly. "I want an explanation."

C.J looked pleadingly at Toby. He swallowed; it was not a look he'd seen from her a long time. She looked defeated.

"I can't do it," Giles said, sounding it.

Toby made a face, but spoke, flatly.

"There are things in world that people don't like to think about. Monsters, demons, vampires. But we have the stories and the warnings because they are real, and we do need to know about them, even if we don't believe. It is always real. Only a few people know for certain, and there is one woman whose mission, whose Calling, is to fight the demons and vampires. She is called the Slayer. There is only ever one. When one dies another woman is Called, and she becomes the Slayer. She is trained by a member of the English based Council of Watchers, whose job it is to protect the Slayer, maintain secrecy, know about demons. Slayers are given extraordinary strength, quick reflexes and quick healing. You were Called last night."

Donna didn't like the sound of the capital letter on 'Called.'

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"You are the Chosen one," Giles said, "the one girl in all the world given the strength to fight the vampires, the demons, and the forces of evil."

"They like that part," C.J said, with the ghost of a smile.

"Yes," Giles said, "especially the part about destiny and saying the world."

"What?" Toby asked, hearing the venom in Giles's voice.

Giles didn't answer and C.J wouldn't meet Toby's eye.

"We need to know what's going on," he continued after a moment.

"What's the problem?" Donna asked. "I can do this."

"But you shouldn't have to," Giles said. "You are too old to be Called. And Buffy's death should not have Called a Slayer, anyway. Which means that we need some serious information; this is being made to happen. I, for one, want to know what it is."

"Watchers?" C.J said.

"The Council gave me Rupert's number, and that was it," Toby said.

"I don't know anything," Giles said.

"So, who would?"

"They'd have to have connection to the Council," said Giles.

"So we want someone with English connection, a love of trivia; everyday things and especially herbs or myths and fairy tales. And an ability to stare at things in the face, anything, until it gives itself up," Toby said slowly.

"Hey," Giles said, in faint protest.

"Me, too," Toby said.

"And the President," C.J said.

"What about Lord Marbury?" Donna added.

"John Marbury?" Giles asked. He began to sound interested again, "Earl of Croy?"

"Marquess of Needham and Dolby," Donna said. And she and C.J both said "Baronet of Brycey," with wistful smiles.

"Yep, he's one of us," Giles said.

"What about the President?" Donna asked.

"I honestly don't know," Giles said.

"Josiah Bartlet, he was at the London School of Economics when he was in his mid twenties."

"Jed Bartlet?"

"Yes, and you honestly didn't know he was the President?" C.J said.

"Yes. Yes. I live on the Hellmouth, Claudia."

"Okay, enough with that," Toby said sharply.

"I am sorry, Mr Giles," C.J said, "I really am."

"I just lost her, Claudia, I can't do this now."

"No."

"We'll call you again if we know anything," Toby said. "You'll do the same for us?"

"Of course," Giles said.

Toby gave him his direct number and Giles hung up.

Toby was beginning to look thoroughly annoyed again, whereas before he had been concentrating on the problem at hand, the new problem was he still had to write a campaign kick-off speech.

C.J looked sad, bone-wearyingly and soul-achingly sad.

Donna felt better about herself than she had in a while. However inexplicably, and however short-lived it would be, she had a purpose. A Purpose, even. She wanted to know what happened now, before someone found a way to take it from her.


	3. Chapter the Third

The first, and only, step they had on the way to finding out what was going on was the President. They were able to get a time to see him after lunch. The President was surprised to see the three of them together. And he wasn't sure what it meant that Donna and C.J were following Toby. That sort of thing was rare, particularly from C.J

"Sir," Toby began hesitantly, "this conversation is the result of two phone calls I made this morning. One with a man who hates me, and the other with a man I don't like. Neither, however, has any reason to tell me anything other than the truth. If this seems like a joke, or prank, please feel free to laugh, and we won't bother you again."

The President took off his glasses to look at him.

"Well, Toby, that's the longest speech I've heard you make without raising your voice, but I'm not laughing yet."

Toby merely nodded and took a steadying breath. He had tried to work out how to say this without sounding crazy or too serious, with no serious success.

He said, "last night, Donna was called as the Vampire Slayer."

The President didn't even blink.

"My sympathies, Donna," he said. "Fate has given you an unusual and rocky path. I know you will tread it well, although it may be short."

Toby let out a relieved sigh. The President turned back to him.

"But there is a lot that has happened that I don't understand, Toby."

Toby had wanted the President to take charge of the situation, as was his want, and leave Toby to write the speech. They had four days left before a readable draft was needed and there were whole sections that had no actual words yet.

"That's why we're here, sir," he said. He went on to explain, as succinctly as possible bulk of his conversations with Quentin Travers and Rupert Giles.

"So the Slayer's death should not have Called a Slayer, and Donna should not have been Called?"

"Yes."

"Why you?" the President asked.

"I'm her Watcher."

"What?" C.J chocked. Her brain had refused to think anything since Donna had said 'Watcher's Council.'

The President, who had till then been waiting for her to explain her own presence turned the full force of the presidential glare on her. C.J quickly apologised and stepped back.

But she repeated her question silently to Toby. His answer was just as eloquent. They now understood much more about the things they, themselves, had done.

"C.J may be able to read your facial expressions, Toby," the President said. "But I cannot."

"I was a Watcher, or almost. I came back home to New York for the summer. I was maybe twenty when I decided that I was going to stay and work, somehow, in politics. The Council, of course, knew where I was. When Donna left home the Council saw that she was coming to the campaign and I was to look out for her. She was to have supervision, although no one expected her to be Called."

C.J stood to her full, tall, height to face the President's next question.

"What about you, C.J?"

"I'm a Slayer."

"So we're dealing with a number of Chosen Ones, are we?" the President asked.

The return of his light humorous tone relaxed them. But the President was quite serious. The look her directed C.J was that of a disappointed father. C.J had been feeling guilty for too long to react.

"I really don't see how my past lives are any concern of yours, sir," C.J said.

"We have a real problem here," Toby said. If the President wasn't going to take over and let Toby write the speech then Toby was going to take charge and damn presidential respect. He almost regretted it when all three of them turned to look at him.

"We have three Slayers. I don't know where the actual Slayer is, but we have Donna, and C.J. That they are here, in D.C, seems to be some kind of prophecy, or necessary situation, so we need to beware of something about to happen. C.J will train Donna; we will do our best to research any occurrences while doing our jobs. I will be in contact with the Watcher in Sunnydale."

The President made a point of coming around his desk and standing with C.J and Donna, facing Toby.

"I'm not in charge here, Toby. You are. I will do my best to help, as well as I can, but you are the Watcher and I have no authority in these matters."

"Are there any government agencies that could help us?" Donna asked.

C.J didn't want to know if there were.

"I don't know," the President said. "In these conversations I'm not the President. The President doesn't know anything about these issues, because if he did he would want to know about the government agencies that have been set up to deal with it, and they wouldn't like it. Mutual ignorance serves us well in many instances. But what do we now?"

"We should call Lord John Marbury. Rupert said he may be able to help us."

The President's eyes lit up.

"Excellent," he said. "Leo will be delighted."

Before Toby could remind the President that the British ambassador was crazy and that Leo could not know anything about what was going on the Chief of Staff entered the Oval himself from his own office.

He was too worried about the piece of paper in his hand to be worried about the odd meeting. He was pleased to see C.J, which worried her.

"Senator Charles Owens died," he said.

"Would you like me to tell Josh?" Donna asked, finding an excuse to leave.

The President let her go and she thanked him fervently for his support as she left.


	4. Chapter the Fourth

"How did he die?" C.J asked, slipping into Press Secretary mode.

"We don't know yet," Leo said. "Caroline found his body. I don't know how much will come out or how soon…"

"But?"

"Conservative Democrat Senator Owens was having an affair. He was having an affair with his wife's secretary. The secretary, Greg Marcus, was blackmailing another of Caroline's staff. He was stealing money from her."

"There's no chance Greg is a girl's nickname?" Toby asked.

"No."

"The problem's not that he was, apparently, gay," C.J said.

"What then?"

"Given the Democratic party and the President's support of legislation to recognise homosexual relationships why is it Senator Owens felt it necessary to conceal his sexuality? Or indeed, what is the White House's comment on Senator Owens's stance on the Marriage Recognition Act, which the President opposed, given his sexuality?"

"So it's that he didn't tell anyone that he was gay?" Leo demanded.

"Of course it is. And nobody will care that he was having an affair, except all the right-wingers who wanted to make a case that homosexuality is corrupting."

"What about his wife?" the President asked, "she found the body?"

"And she was having money stolen from her, and it was her secretary," Leo said.

"I'll talk to her," C.J offered, looking to Leo for confirmation.

He nodded, "I'll set it up."

"Toby?" the President addressed his speechwriter in the 'this one word is a whole conversation' tone.

"Yeah," Toby said, understanding the possible implications of such an improbable death.

Leo glanced between Toby and the President. Then he looked at C.J. The immediate theory was that it had to do with the speech they had to write as well as all the comments the President would have to make over the next week. But C.J's nervous comprehension worried him. Something was going on, and if he couldn't know, it would be bad. He began to think about excuses he could make to see Abbey.

They all had things now that needed getting on with, so they dispersed and allowed Charlie to prep the President for a meeting with the jocks from the treasury.

Toby and C.J stepped out together. And once past the outer office stepped closer together.

"You know how this goes," Toby said.

C.J knew that he was testing her. But she thought that maybe he was letting her test him as well.

"You hit the books, I train. Well done, Pokey. But I also have a press briefing to give and a grieving widow to talk to."

"See if you can get her to get you to keep it quite. Keep it as quiet as you can. I want to see how it breaks, and if she's on our side it won't matter so much that there's no way we can claim he was. And also we don't want to make a thing about it because of what it is. Also we won't be surprised by it, but we'll have kept it quiet out of the respect for said grieving widow."

"I get it, Toby," C.J said, stopping outside her office.

"Also you'll need to train weapons. All I have is a few crosses, some stakes and three and a quarter bottles of holy water."

"Three and a quarter bottles of holy water, Pokey?"

"I'm Jewish, it's bad for me, I need to keep track of it."

"But not the crosses?" C.J asked.

"They're easy to take of."

"I want to know what happened to the three quarters of a bottle of holy water."

"You do your thing, I'll do mine," Toby said, retreating behind his worried worker wall.

"I'll take Donna out tonight," C.J told him.

"Good," Toby said. He sighed as he got back to balancing his own problems.

The afternoon briefing was uneventful. The press had not yet got wind of Senator Owens's lunchtime demise. C.J began to think that maybe it was part of a grander scheme. And even if it weren't she would have to look out for other unusual deaths.

And already her mind was putting everything in Slayer context. That's what she'd missed when she'd left, and what she loved about this job; having a clear frame you could think everything through. In the end politics had a lot to do with demons and vampires and monsters. And what was she going to do when she met Caroline Owens.

Carol was there to walk her back to her office. C.J, for once, had to think to concentrate on the list of things she had to do. At least the President knew what was going on. C.J dismissed her assistant with a list of things to do and went in search of Donna.

"Hey, Josh," she called, "can I borrow Donna?"

Josh stuck his head from around his door and looked from Donna to C.J

"Sure, what for?" he asked.

C.J glanced at where Carol would have been for inspiration.

"Carol's not here, and there's a thing," she said.

Josh just nodded waved Donna over to C.J's side. C.J suppressed a smile at the simplicity of using a 'thing' as an excuse.

Donna followed her into her office.

"So what are we doing?" she asked cautiously.

"Training," C.J said. "I don't really know what sort of demon to look up, or how. Toby's on that as well as the speech and general campaign stuff. I don't like to ask questions."

"Yes," Donna agreed.

C.J had closed both the main door and one that connected with Josh's office, as well as all the blinds in the office. Donna didn't see how any training could be done here, and that thought escaped over and above the willingness of her mind to believe the whole thing was strange dream.

She certainly never would have believed a word of it if it hadn't been Toby in his gruff, annoyed, and yet certainly knowledgeable way.

C.J took a small key out her desk drawer and used it open a small cabinet in the back of the desk.

She didn't have a large range of weapons. She tried to forget everything she knew and ignore everything she couldn't forget. She concentrated on things like hitting things so it made a noise without breaking anything and no one was any the wiser. But she still had a cross bow, several stakes, a short sword and two heavy bladed silver daggers.


	5. Chapter the Fifth

"Wow," Donna said after a moment.

C.J looked at the collection, arrayed so neatly in her office, and sighed.

"What's up C.J?" Donna asked.

"I should never have left," C.J said.

She knelt to take the two daggers from their casing in the door. She hefted them, one in each hand, feeling their weight and balance. She liked these daggers. Her Watcher had given to her for her sixteenth birthday. She'd had to kill a Fyarl demon and they had some difficulty finding something silver to use as weapon. And she'd always liked trowing; daggers, stakes, swords. She'd thrown a brick once and had broken something's neck.

She realised that Donna had asked a question. She tried to remember what it was. "Why?" was most likely, or perhaps "what?"

"My Watcher showed me her baby," she said, absently. "The Slayer before me had had a baby. He was about four when she died, not really a baby. He watched me carefully the whole time I was there, him, me, my Watcher, and hers. I didn't want to do it. He'd come to Ohio and taken me to New York. I didn't want to believe, and I certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it. My– Miles said 'If you can't to it for us, or for yourself, or for the world, do it for him.' I tried, I really did, but ordinary guys got to me and killed me, and how could I take on the responsibility of a four-year-old's innocence? Poor Robin, I wonder what he's doing now," she ended bitterly.

Donna just watched as C.J lifted her left hand and threw the dagger, straight into the plaster directly next to the doorjamb to Josh's office. The right one followed after, landing just above its twin.

C.J stalked over to the daggers and yanked them out of the wood. She turned on one heel and threw a dagger towards Donna's face. Donna didn't try anything fancy. She dropped to her knees and caught the dagger between her palms.

But she didn't look at C.J then. She sat back on her heels and examined the dagger. It had markings along the hilt and the blade. They meant something, although Donna had no idea what. And she thought that the dagger was an odd shape. It appeared too long, or too thick, or too narrow.

Donna stood carefully and pushed aside everything in her that said that demons don't exist and therefore there can't be a Vampire Slayer, and the dream wasn't exactly what had happened. There wasn't much left, she been handed this so straightforwardly, by Toby of all people. She threw the knife, right handed. It landed between the doorjamb and the wall on the other side of Josh's door.

The door opened abruptly.

"Alright, Claudia Jean, twice is okay, but what the hell is going on here?" Josh demanded.

He turned his head to glower at Donna as well and noticed the knife in the wall.

"Okay, really what is going on?" he asked.

"We are very angry women, Josh," C.J said calmly. "It's probably better for your health to not get in the way."

Josh gulped and closed the door behind him.

"That was really easy," C.J said.

She looked to Donna questioningly.

"He is a lot of the time," she said.

A moment later she added: "You threw a knife a me."

"Standard testing procedure," C.J said.

"Testing! How many non-Slayers get killed in between times, C.J?" Donna demanded. "You just throw knives at people and hope they can catch them out the air?"

"You did. I can," C.J said. "And it's not for us, it's for you. You can't possibly deny that you have powers now. There's no way I could have done it if I wasn't sure."

Donna could hear the faint bitterness in the edge of C.J's voice. "Okay."

Donna sank down onto C.J's couch. C.J sat down beside her. They quietly for a moment; until Donna had put her thoughts in some sort of order.

"I'm going to have to get this pretty quickly, aren't I?"

"Yeah. But don't worry too much. There's a real Slayer out there, a young woman, who doesn't have the commitments and the life that you have. And there's me. I know what it's like and I can help you out if you'd like. In the meantime we have to find out something about a demon that's set up camp here."

"As well as do our jobs," Donna said.

"I'll take you out tonight, see if we can't find ourselves some vampires."

"This is really real, isn't it?"


	6. Chapter the Sixth

"This is it," C.J said, leading Donna through D.C's cemetery.

Donna stepped carefully around graves and plot marks. Half of her was aware that this was a sacred place. And the other half was waiting for the vampires. She had begged the night off from Josh and the President had ordered C.J out of the office after the last briefing. They had had maybe an hour and a half to prepare for the patrol.

"The vampires will be drawn to us, because we're Slayers," C.J was explaining.

"That's nice to know," Donna murmured, hefting her stake in her hand. There wasn't really enough weight in a stake to heft it, which did nothing to help her gathering fear.

"Normally they keep a low profile. The population in D.C is pretty stable, people here are suspicious enough on their own. Of course they also like places where there is a lot of magic, or some sort of power source."

"Power?" Donna asked.

She tried to listen to C.J and look around all the tombstones and send out her instincts to sense the vampires coming. She noticed C.J several times over the half hour they wandered and it seemed that the often tightly wound press secretary was slowly coming to enjoy herself.

"They like the Hellmouth, where the last Slayer was. And Las Vegas has a lot of magic because of all the gambling. There are other places as well, Cleveland, somewhere in the Franconia-Swiss mountains in Germany, the starting point of the Great Wall carried a lot of power for a long time."

"Is this useful information?" Donna asked, spinning around to look behind her.

"No," C.J said. "I used to know them all."

C.J led the way down the next path and stopped by a grave.

"Here," she said.

"Why here?" Donna asked.

This didn't look any different to any other part of the cemetery. It didn't feel any different. She flexed her hand around the stake.

"Don't you feel something?" C.J asked. "My calves are tingling."

"No, I don–" Donna started.

Then she realised what her hands were doing and looked at them. She flexed each in turn, they moved as well as always, but it felt that they were cramped.

She was going to ask if that's what it was supposed to be like when the ground moved between her feet. She leaped backwards, but C.J didn't move. Donna watched as an old man pulled himself out of the ground and turned to face her. She raised her stake as he took a step forward.

C.J pushed him with her left hand and jumped backwards. The vampire stood still a moment, facing them both off. He lunged at Donna, who blocked one attack, before C.J backhanded it with her stake. Donna looked up in time to see the dust fall to the ground.

The women were allowed half a moment's breather before three more vampires appeared out of the shadows. Donna looked from the vampires to C.J

"Sense Slayers do they?" she asked.

"Yeah," C.J said. She hadn't taken her eyes off their three assailants. She waved Donna to keep her eyes on them.

"Slayers?" one of the vampires echoed.

There was no mistaking the sexual connotations he put into the phrase. C.J swallowed and Donna took a step back, raising the stake.

"Sunnydale's free?" the second one asked. The gloating tone was rich from his beefy frame.

C.J rushed him. She was not going to let any of them leave now.

The third one rushed Donna as the tableau broke. The leader stood back, studying the women's moves and waiting to take over a fight. Donna had missed her first swipe with the stake. The vampire was shorter than her, and of a lighter build. But he was much surer of himself than she was.

He grabbed her around the waist, pinning her arms between them. Donna tried to push through his grip. A moment of trying and she switched tactics. Josh had commented more than once on her ability to jump topics so quickly. She was able to dig her arm into his body and slid her hand free. A quick jab and he began to turn to dust. She leapt back to keep her balance.

Before she had fully regained composure the boss ran at her from behind. She moved quickly to stake him without putting her body in the way, only to discover that she didn't have a stake anymore.

"C.J!"

C.J pulled her stake out of the beefy vampire before he finally dusted. She wasn't quite as out of practice as she had thought. She turned in time to see Donna make a reasonable attempt to flip the last one over her shoulder. She was half way there when C.J threw her stake. It buried itself though the heart from behind. The vamp disappeared and Donna's momentum threw her to the ground.

She lay there, panting for a moment.

When she looked up C.J was still standing watching where the vampire had been. She looked thrilled. She looked comfortable standing in the middle of Washington's cemetery, in high heels, covered in grass stains and holding a dusty, pointy piece of wood.

Despite her current state, Donna began to feel pretty good about herself too.

She caught C.J's eye and they both grinned.

"Is it always like this?" Donna asked.

"Mostly," C.J said.

She pulled Donna to her feet.

"We had two days to prepare from an all out attack once. It was… worse… than the election. We had to be so quiet while we were waiting. Me, Miles, this nasty vampire. Miles and he had somehow worked something out. They hated each other, I don't know what made it personal, but they got together to stop this demon from bringing his whole clan to the earth for a picnic. Two days of full on preparation, I missed school, but the fight only lasted about half an hour."

"What happened?" Donna asked.

"We won, and the nasty vamp ran off," C.J said.

Donna looked at her, asking for more details.

"I can't tell you more," C.J shrugged, "you try to describe the fight we just had. It's why football teams need coaches and video cameras. Sometimes your Watcher will come and comment on your style. And in training."

"Toby in a cemetery," Donna murmured, shaking her head.


	7. Chapter the Seventh

C.J slept better than she had a long time. She arrived at the West Wing early to begin a search of all unusual deaths in the area in the last month, at least. The police still hadn't said anything about the nature of Charles Owens's death and press had to have the information soon.

Donna was at her desk staring in to space as C.J passed. She was able to study the younger woman for a moment before Donna looked up at her and smiled wanly.

"Hey, how are you?" C.J asked.

"I have no idea," Donna said. "I had another dream. A woman, dark hair, in a fight in a prison. Normally I wouldn't dwell, except now it might mean something. If it were a normal dream I would put it down to the fight we had last night, except that that shouldn't have happened either. And even if all of this is true, it shouldn't have happened. I don't know what's going on at all, and Josh took the Murray file home with him by mistake and I need to proof read it before his meeting."

C.J smiled. Donna sounded more annoyed about the last than worried about the first complaints. Donna narrowed her eyes at C.J.

"Did we really go out last night to stake vampires?" she asked.

"We killed four of them," C.J said, matter-of-factly.

"Okay. And we don't know anything yet about the demon?"

C.J sighed. "That's Watcher stuff. We kill it once we know what it is."

"And we don't ask questions?" Donna prodded, not liking C.J's pensive bitterness.

C.J sat down on the edge of Donna's desk and leaned against the partition. She closed her eyes.

"I don't know how to do this. I didn't know how to do it then when it was all I had to do. But, no, it's not as bad as that. 'Keep going', that's it really. I'm going to go now and see if I can find any more unexplained deaths and then I'll talk to Caroline Owens before I give my briefing. Sometime today I will yell at Toby, and that will make me feel better."

Donna laughed at the mischievous look on C.J face.

"What are you two doing here, laughing in my office," Josh demanded, striding down the hall towards them. Donna grabbed his backpack off him and began rifling through it. He raised eyebrow at her, but directed the question at C.J.

"You don't really want to know why it was were laughing, do you, Joshua?"

Josh looked suspiciously from C.J to Donna. Donna grabbed the Murray from the bag and waved it Josh's face triumphantly. Josh tried to bat it out of the way, but ended up taking a couple of steps back.

C.J crumbled into hysterics.

"Josh?" Sam's voice came down the hall.

Josh looked up him, glad he wasn't laughing too.

"We've got the thing now?" Sam said, hoping Josh had remembered.

"Oh, right, yeah," Josh said.

He looked at Donna suspiciously again. C.J was still laughing. Sam frowned at her.

"What thing?" Donna asked.

"Well, we were planning to overthrow the government," said Sam.

"But then we remembered that we were the government," Josh added.

"So we have to think of what else we can do," Sam finished.

C.J started laughing more. Josh and Sam looked at her with as much dignity as they could put on and left.

"C.J?" Donna asked.

C.J nodded, taking calming breaths. "I know. Stop laughing. Prepare for briefing."

"C.J, Leo called to say that Mrs Owens will be coming to speak to you before your briefing," Carol said, appearing at her boss's side.

That sobered C.J quickly. Both Carol and Donna gave her sympathetic smiles as she left to tidy her office somewhat and put her thoughts in order.


	8. One Plus One Equals Three Chapter the Eighth

Caroline Owens wove her way through the corridors of the West Wing, handling her visitors' card with obvious nerves. She knocked on C.J's door but didn't wait before she entered.

C.J stood and offered the woman her hand and then a seat on the couch.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs Owens."

"Call me Caroline, please," she said. "And I imagine you aren't sorry about the mess I've landed on your laps."

"You didn't land it, Caroline," C.J responded. "We we're grateful that we knew so soon, before we could be hit with it by the media."

"Yes, I suppose." Caroline paused for moment, "you'll have to bare with me. I haven't really got used to the idea that he won't be coming back"

"I can understand that," C.J offered.

"I just don't want anyone to make a big thing of it. He was my husband. I loved him, and he did love me. He never said, which is kind of how I know."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"I just came home and found him there." Caroline didn't look at C.J as she spoke.

"He was on the couch, sitting there. I called the police. The detective said it wasn't suicide and as far as they could make out, natural causes wasn't likely. He didn't have anything and the coroner said it wasn't a heart attack. Like in the new Harry Potter book, 'he was perfectly healthy except that he was dead.'

"The detective's an old friend of mine, although he didn't know Charles that well. He won't take it anywhere but we still have to wait on the autopsy. Of course, the police wanted me to list anyone I knew might have had a grudge against him. That's when I went through his files and found the stuff about Gary. He had a key. I knew Gary was out at a lunch so I went round there and went through his files. I found his evidence of Chris's stealing."

C.J let her talk, storing up the information she needed for Leo, the President, Toby and the Press. She looked politely concerned and disinterested. Leo had told Caroline that the absolute best person to tell things to was C.J and they, the White House, had no interest in putting her on camera or even talking about what had happened.

"I don't want it to go any where, C.J," she said. "I told Chris I wouldn't press charges if he gave the money back and didn't press charges against Gary. And I told Gary to pay Chris back and let it be.

"He's dead, why can't it just be that?"

C.J stopped a moment. "I don't know," she said. "But he was a senator, and the media will discuss what happened if they know there's something to discuss. I'll do my best to keep them away from you, but there will be questions. Just answer them as simply as you like, but answer truthfully, always truthfully. If you don't want to answer a questions, just say so."

Caroline nodded wearily. The shock was beginning to sink in and hard reality of she had found would be waiting for her.

"I'll need to find his brother, and call him," she murmured.

C.J took the other woman's hand and held it gently between her own.

"When he came home last week he was laughing because of some grammatical error in the paper he'd read on the way home."

Carol knocked gently on the door.

Caroline didn't look up but C.J took her briefing book and left the room. She gestured Carol stay with Mrs Owens for the time being.


	9. Chapter the Ninth

There was nothing from the press at all about Senator Owens's death. There was nothing that touched on the issue. C.J began to feel someone had replaced the reporters she had come to know and hate with pod-people. If she didn't already believe in supernatural things she would have suspected it now.

Caroline had left her office by the time the briefing was over. C.J began to work out how to break the news herself because worse than being hit unexpectedly was being accused of covering it up. She didn't notice Toby sitting on her couch until he coughed.

She spun to face him.

"Toby, don't startle me like that."

Toby shrugged. "Just don't stake me for it," he said.

C.J frowned at him, with a hint of a smile. Mr Giles would not have made a comment like that, she was sure, but then, Toby had never actually become a Watcher. C.J wondered where their relationship stood now.

"C.J, stop musing and talk to me," Toby said.

C.J raised an eyebrow at him.

"Is Charles Owens's death going to make front page?" he asked.

"You know what, Toby, I'll be surprised if it reaches the obituary column. He had a high level meeting today, and no one asked why he didn't show."

Toby pulled out his little notebook and wrote some notes on it. C.J waited for some kind of explanation.

"We're still on finding out what sort of demon it might be, C.J. It seems to be killing people who are keeping secrets, I thought it might be a Fama demon, but it would want the story to break. See if there are any more."

C.J sighed. All the Watcher snobbery seemed to have rubbed off onto to Toby in a surprisingly short time. He started mumbling under his breath, and she could hear him listing the topics that needed to be address by the President this week. Just the old Toby she smiled, and shooed him out of the room.

A moment after he had gone C.J realised that she had already moved all thoughts of Josh, Sam and Leo to the edges of her mind. Moving your boss there probably wasn't a good idea. She picked up the pile of real work she had, including Josh's memo on the new welfare initiative.

Come the second briefing C.J had found two more suspicious deaths from the previous week and the President had organised a meeting for the four of them with Lord Marbury. A Congressman, not at all related to Mark Wilson, they had nothing in common but their positions in the government. And a cop. C.J. thought that his secret might have been that he was gay. That was depressing; that finding out that someone was gay could mean that much. She didn't know what Congressman Anderson had been hiding, but it certainly wasn't that.

She found herself once again in the strange almost timeless space that was the Press Briefing Room.

She told them about the President's plans for remodelling infrastructure planning. And his pleasure at the response to last week's speech at the Colleges' function.

"And the President would like to extend his condolences to Caroline Owens. Her husband, Senator Charles Owens was found dead in his home yesterday afternoon. The police are still investigating the matter and Mrs Owens has asked that the White House not release any details."

There was a moment's silence while the pressroom decided that C.J wouldn't give them any more information, at least not yet.

"What can you tell us about Tim McCarthy's death?" was the first question.

"I'm referring those questions to the D.C Police Department. Timothy McCarthy was found dead in his apartment on Saturday night. He was a detective with the D.C police force and had served well in that position for four years. He was thirty-six years old."

"There are rumours of suspicious, or even supernatural causes," Katie said, giving that thought the scorn it deserved.

C.J. almost dissolved into laugher.

"The D.C Police Department has not made any public statement regarding cause of death. Why are you asking me?"

"Does the President believe that a supernatural explanation might be possible?"

C.J. decided that 'the President knows that the cause of death is supernatural' would be the best answer if it weren't true. She could trust that this wouldn't be a story.

"Define supernatural, Mark," she said instead. "I couldn't make a comment on the President's thoughts on divine intervention, but I think I would draw the line at random alien attacks."

The room laughed and C.J. felt easier. It would almost be over and they would be able to get on with making sure it really was over.


	10. Chapter the Tenth

Five o'clock came and found Donna, C.J and Toby gathered in the outer office of the West Wing. They hadn't had a chance to all get together since leaving the Oval Office the previous afternoon. The President came out of the office behind a line of advisors, and Josh. The advisors greeted the Senior Staff members and Donna politely and continued their own discussion out the door.

"Ah, you made it," the President said, with mock surprise as he surveyed the group.

"I think I have some information for you," Toby said neutrally. But he looked sideways at Josh, who was looking sideways at him.

"Josh and Sam were trying to find a way to overthrow the government," C.J said, trying to draw the two men out of their standoff.

"Does that mean you're not going to look at those statistics for me, Josh?" the President asked.

"No, sir, I will," Josh said, wanting desperately to know what was going on here. The President waited. "I'll go and do that now."

"Thank you, Josh."

Josh knew dismissal when he heard it.

He said, "Thank you, Mr President." But he cast a speculative glance over the assembled group before he left.

The President looked at his aide.

"He's in the situation room, sir," Charlie said.

The President nodded and lead the group silently out behind the secret service agents. Charlie didn't need to look speculative.

Leo knocked politely on the First Lady's office door. Max opened it and Leo look expectantly at the young man.

"Good Afternoon, Mr McGarry," Max said.

"Max, call me Leo," he said, yet again. "Is Abbey in?"

"Yes, sir, the First Lady here. She should be out of her meeting soon."

"We hold the same positions, Max, call me Leo," Leo said. He'd even managed to train Charlie out of it.

"Due respect, sir, you're Chief of Staff to the President. I work for the First Lady, I talk to Josh."

"I've know you since you were fourteen," Leo said.

He was tired of having this argument with this man. But he was also on edge about this meeting with Abbey, and he didn't mind taking it out on her staff.

The meeting broke up and Abbey was there before Max had to reply. She waved the people off with false smiles and grimaced at their backs.

"Leo! Come in, come in," Abbey said, waving him through. "Hang on, is this bad news?"

"I don't know," Leo said.

Abbey sighed and lead him through to her office.

"What is it Leo?" she asked, softly demanding everything he knew.

"You heard about Charles Owens's death?"

"Jed told me, he said that they didn't know what it was but there were several complications."

"Yeah. The President was meeting with Toby, C.J and Donna when I took it to him."

"That's an odd group, isn't it?"

"Yes. Josh came to ask me why they were meeting, he saw them just now. I couldn't tell him anything, but he was worried."

"Leo," Abbey said his name as a warning. Whatever was going on, it wasn't his place to ask her. But she knew he would.

"I know why you left, Abbey. And I helped you then. I need your help now."

"I can't do that, Leo," she said immediately. And he knew that she'd already thought of it.

"Abbey," he said, the tone that said 'this is Leo.' "I'm not asking you find out what's going, but I need to know how bad it might be. And if anything at all is effecting the President's judgement on other things, I need to know what I need to compensate for."

"No you don't, Leo. I don't care how difficult it gets for you, it's the President. It's his job to ensure the security of this country. And sometimes it's going to be necessary for you not to know things so you can do your job."

Leo got the distinct impression that they were talking about two distinct issues at the same time. He had one card left to play.

"I didn't ask for anything, or any explanation when you ran to me, Abbey."

"I don't believe you," she stated calmly, but Leo could hear the disgust. "If it's bad, I'll protect you."

"I don't need your protection."

"You might."


	11. Chapter the Eleventh

Lord John Marbury leapt to his feet when the doors to the situation room opened.

"Mr President," he cried.

He bowed. As he straightened he waved to the rest of the group dismissively. The four of them, the President included, stood around him in a rough semi-circle.

"John. This is Toby Ziegler, he has some questions he hopes you could answer."

"Ah, yes," Marbury said, whirling to face Toby. "The President needs to make sure that, during the campaign he makes a stand against military involvement in civil wars and conflicts as distinct from acts of war or genocide. He also needs to re-state his commitment to education. This country has great influence …"

"Your Lordship," Toby interrupted. "It's not a campaign speech, it's an announcement to run for re-election. And that's not what we're here for."

"No, why are we here?" Marbury asked. "It's very nice room, if you like technology and the ability to blow things up."

Donna tried hard not to giggle at the look on Toby's face.

"Four years ago, the Slayer, Buffy Summers died. Faith was Called, when Buffy died two days ago, Donna was Called. We want to know what's going on," Toby said.

"Who gave you my name?" Marbury asked, suddenly completely serious and lucid.

"Ms Summers's Watcher, Mr Rupert Giles. He said you knew enough about the Council and may be able to help us. I called Quentin Travers, he wouldn't give me any direction but to call Rupert."

"Is there anything happening in D.C?"

"C.J and I killed four vampires last night," Donna offered.

"Claudia?" Marbury asked.

"Yes, your Lordship."

Marbury stood still for a moment, but eventually thought better of saying whatever he had to say. He turned to the President.

"What else?"

"C.J's been looking into that," Toby said.

"We have had three suspicious deaths in the last week. The police have not ruled anything out, but reading between the lines they have nothing. I'd need access to the police files to learn anything more that what I know, but they were all hiding something."

"I had thought that it was the Fama demon," Toby began.

He looked at Lord Marbury to see if that was what he wanted to know. His lordship flopped into one of the chairs and waved Toby to continue.

"Fama means fame, or reputation, in Latin," the President said.

Donna wanted to laugh at the look on Toby's face again. She might have too, but for how still C.J was standing beside her.

"But Fama demons like to embarrass their victims, destroy their reputations. None of these stories are going to be stories. Vengeance demons would also want their victims alive. But I thought that we're in Washington to it had to have something to do with lies."

"Of course," Marbury said scornfully. "American politicians have no respect for convention."

"Not exactly," Toby said. "I looked up the MO in my copy of 'What Demon is That?'"

"You have one of those?" the President demanded, twelve years old again.

"I have a Watcher's library of six books, Mr President, they make up two thirds of my collection. The demon can sense when a reputation shattering lie is being maintained, and it likes to prevent them being revealed. I think we have a Paterfactio demon."

"Revelation demon," the President said, "Patefactio, to make open or exposed."

"Yes, sir. It doesn't like the feeling of betrayal or the stuff that happens after a big lie is unearthed. It does whatever it can to prevent that happening."

"This is Washington, Toby," the President said slowly. "Why is it here, now? There's no one who isn't going to be in some sort of trouble, given our disrespect for convention."

Toby was no prepared to make the next step. C.J knew what had happened between them in more detail than she ever wanted to. She also knew that even though the President had tried to stop being in charge, Donna wasn't going to say anything.

"It would have been here through the seventies, after Watergate," she began. "Then everyone was very well behaved and it went off elsewhere. In Washington people expect a certain amount of the people to be lying most of the time, so no one feels betrayed, or even very much surprised when something happens. Respect at the play, or straight out anger. Neither of which is good, by the way. It's not exactly betrayal the demon senses, someone has to have actually lied, and maintained a lie and built a reputation that a revelation could topple."

"Then why wasn't it here before?"

"Here was safe, sir. It didn't think to look until last week. The MS, sir. It brought the demon here."

"And it hasn't just wiped out all the liars in Washington? because that would be a good result," the President said.

There was faint sigh of relief that nothing had happened. Everyone was still tense with every mention of 'the Thing.' Except the Queen's ambassador, who seemed to be dozing.

"It likes to be sure of things," Toby said. "It's not going to risk a death that would blow the whole thing open."

"No. Who's in danger?"

"Josh," Donna said. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder wouldn't be a surprise, but it could do a lot of damage.

"Sam?" Toby asked.

C.J. laughed a bit, "No. He's fine. I think I am, too. Sir, you should talk to Leo and the First Lady. If there might be anything…"

"Yep," he said.

"Can we make a list?" C.J. asked.

"No, and what would we do with it?" Donna said.

"That's not the point," Marbury said, standing up quickly and startling them all.

"What is?" the President asked.

"You're a Slayer," Marbury said, jabbing a finger at Donna, who nodded. "And you used to be one," he accused C.J. She nodded too. "You were going to be a Watcher, but you dropped out." Toby nodded. "And you found out too much while you were in London." The President waited for Marbury to continue.

"It's too coincidental. We'd find more connections here if we wanted. But the point that Toby made at the start is that Donna, charming and pretty as she is, should not be the Slayer, for any reason. Which means she is the Slayer for a reason and we need to find the prophecy."

They all four looked at him slightly sceptically.

"You don't get this sort of a confluence of events by accident. The Slayer's death should not have caused another to be Called, but Called another was, maintaining two Slayers. And we had C.J, so that's three. One plus one equals three."

"Two, John," the President said. "I think I remember that much in my study of economics."

"Buffy, plus Donna, if we didn't have those two, we wouldn't have found C.J out. But there's more than that…"

He stopped to spend a moment staring into space.

"I know the prophecy. Do you know any witches?"

"Rupert will," Toby said.

"Yes, let's give old Ripper a call. This may take a few days to organise, Mr President. I suggest you go back to work."


	12. Chapter XII

Giles called the subdued Scooby meeting to order. This meant coughing, and they all looked at him. They were seated in their usual arrangement, and Buffy's absence was still a physical hole in the group. It had been just over a week since her death, now, and the group was beginning to deal with the shock.

Giles could sense the hidden menace in Spike's posture and wondered who would take his news the worse. To a certain extent he trust that Spike's obsession with Buffy had been channelled to keeping Dawn safe. But that left Xander and Tara to see the problems with what had been proposed.

They were still looking at him expectantly. He was the grown up. He had been in charge of Buffy's welfare, as well as that had gone. And he was the one standing up.

"I received a phone call from an old acquaintance of mine," he began. "Last Monday."

Willow and Xander exchanged nervous looks. Dawn looked at him fearfully. They all remembered Ethan, and obviously took his reluctance to tell them, and lack of joy, as a bad sign.

"I received another call on Wednesday from a man I would call a friend. They were ringing about Buffy's death."

Spike was on his feet glowering at Giles in a moment. Giles tried not to be too alarmed. He sat down, Spike joined them at the table, and Willow narrowed her eyes.

"How do they know?" she asked. "Sure, we buried her, but we didn't tell anyone, and we'd know if someone had found out."

The certainty in her last statement lead Giles to believe that she had put some sort of spell around Buffy's grave. By Tara's look, she was worried by, too. Giles thought maybe he had found this month's major concern under his own nose.

"A Slayer was Called," he said.

"She can't have been!" Willow paused a moment. "I mean, she was already dead, and we have Faith, and even if we don't want to have her you can't just say 'we won't ever need you.'"

"Shh," Tara said, squeezing Willow's hand. "But it shouldn't have hap-happened, sh-should it?"

"No," Giles said.

Dawn was still looking at him, trustingly, which made his positions more awkward. He bit the bullet.

"A Slayer was Called, when Buffy died. She wasn't discovered until two days later, after her Watcher had performed a searching spell. The Lord Watcher says that it is the beginning of prophecy. So we are all going to Washington to help him work out what's going on."

"Washington?" Willow breathed. "What does the prophecy say?"

"Yeah, Giles, they must have told you something to get you to get us to go."

"The shop," Anya said. "We can't leave the shop. And we can't leave the Buffy-bot. And Dawn should go to school."

"No, I shouldn't," Dawn said, sneering at Anya. "I should go were I'm needed. Where Buffy needs me." She turned to Giles. "I am needed, aren't I?"

"Yes," he said.

"But Anya's right about the Buffy-bot," Xander said. "We can't leave her here on her own, and we can't leave the Hellmouth unprotected. Do we all have to go? Because I vote for Spike staying and looking after his toy."

Despite the obvious barb in his comments, Spike seemed to agree.

"'And those who saw the Slayer in her death, all of them…' That's what the prophecy says. My Lord Marbury has organised security for Sunnydale, and transportation for us. We leave on Friday. The team should arrive on Thursday evening, which will give us a day to bring them up to speed."

There was nothing anyone could say, so they said nothing. Dawn continued to go to school, there were three weeks left until the end of the year. Willow and Tara continued to prepared for their exams. Xander got up every morning and went to work, Anya opened the shop, Spike prowled at nights, and Giles sat in his office worrying about the sudden arrival of the Lord Watcher into his Slayer's life.


	13. Chapter XIII

The group met at last light on Thursday at the magic box to welcome, and assess the team which would be taking their places in Sunnydale for however long whatever it was took. There was a knock on the door just as they settled. Giles got up to open the door and lead the tall, greying man to the research table. But fe wasn't going to talk if this other man didn't initiate it. He looked army trained, and maybe he didn't know that there were demons.

The newcomer surveyed the group briskly taking in Spike's possessiveness of Dawn and Willow's hand entwined with Tara's. He nodded in general greeting.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said, making it sound more than the usual formula. "But I'm here to protect Sunnydale from whatever sort of threat it faces while you're in Washington."

"Who are you?" Willow asked, grinning slightly.

The man blushed slightly. "My name is Simon Donovan. I'm officially employed by the Treasury Department."

"You're with the Secret Service," Willow said, her eyes going wider.

"Bodyguard? Bah," Anya said, thoroughly unimpressed by the well dressed, handsome, muscly man. "Do you know how many women make wishes over bodyguards. All right, unusually someone else's but there was this one time in Prussia…"

"An, honey."

Simon shrugged. "Unofficially I'm part of the Special Special Operations Group, which is itself unofficial."

Willow grinned. She wondered how many secret government organization there were, and whether they knew about each other. Donovan called his men in from the street outside and introduced them to the Scooby gang, who gave their names in turn.

"We'll want to set up our command central at the Slayer's house," Donovan said. "Is there room for the four of us to stay there tonight?"

"If you don't mind sleeping on the floor," Dawn said.

Donovan smiled. "Not at all," he said.

The agents followed everyone else and parked their car outside the inconspicuous suburban house. They mingled uncomfortably in the entrance for a few moments while the others went about their end of day chores. Eventually Willow noticed their stance and started.

"Oh, it's okay, come in," she said, after checking that they were all already inside.

"Nice house," he said, looking around.

"It's repaired on a regular basis," Dawn said.

"I'll give you a quick tour in a moment. Dawn, can you order the pizzas? Are pizzas okay?"

Donovan saw his second in command, Sandra Hall, grin out of the corner of his eye.

"Pizza's fine," he said. He wondered how many of the seven people were actually going to spend the night here.

The house was too busy for all of them, so he let Sandra, Duncan and Ben stay downstairs while he followed Willow upstairs.

She pointed out the main bedroom, Dawn's room and the bathroom. When they came to the third bedroom she pushed open the door and gestured Donovan inside.

At first glance he saw a young woman hooked up to some piece of medical equipment. Then he saw that her eyes were open, and unblinking. And she appeared to be plugged into the machine.

Donovan raised his eyebrows at that, even as he scanned the room for possible entrances, views and hiding places.

Willow unplugged the robot and powered her up. She sat up and looked at Donovan.

"Hello, my name is Buffy Summers, do you know what a vampire Slayer is?"

"Yes, I do," Donovan said, slightly unnerved by the robot's intonation.

"Buffy," Willow said.

"Hello, Willow. Do you know this man?"

"Yes. This is Simon Donovan. He will stay here for a little while. He will help you protect Sunnydale."

"I don't need help, Willow. I am the Slayer. And you and Xander help me because you are my friends."

"We have to go away for a little while. You have to stay here because you have to protect Sunnydale. Dawn, Giles, Xander, Tara, Anya, Spike and I have to go another city. We will come back."

"I'm glad you will come back. I will miss Spike. You have to look after Dawn."

"We will. Until I come back, you answer to Agent Donovan, okay."

"Agent Donovan will be in charge while you are not here," the Buffy-bot said, smiling at Donovan. He tried to smile back.

"Yes. XX123 Willow changed XX123 Agent Donovan. Do you understand that?"

The bot looked up at Donovan.

"When I am injured, you will need to repair me. Willow used to, but you are in charge now."

"Okay. I'll do my best. I would like to talk to Willow outside now."

"Yes, I will wait here."

Willow sighed and followed the Agent into the hallway.

"Are you okay with that?" Willow asked. "Sorry to just do it, but I don't want to try to come to Washington looking for me. April walked across town looking for Warren and you need to able to stop that. She understands most things, and will ask if she doesn't. She knows to go on patrol, but a team should go with her to make sure nothing happens. You just plug her in a night, there's a panel in her stomach, I'm sure you saw it. Just tell her to turn off. To turn her on again, unplug her and there's a switch. If anything goes wrong you can call me, I can probably explain most of it over the phone. Oh, I'll get you the back up disks, hang on a moment."

"Willow," Donovan stopped her. "She's brilliant. I don't know how you did it, but I'm sure we'd like to have one of our own. I'll call you if we encounter any problems but she seems pretty well programmed. I just need to know the override code."

"Right, yes, of course." Willow stopped to slow herself down. "The override code is 'override code Duck Soup,' that will stop her where she is, like she's frozen. I didn't build her. A guy called Warren Meers did. I don't where he is, but he built the first one, April, too. I don't like him, but he seems pretty harmless. He's a techno nerd, I'm sure you could get him to build for one you, but you wouldn't want to tell him who you were."

Willow rushed back into the room to grab the disks and handed them to Donovan.

"You can just plug the power in socket into a USB drive for access to her programming."

"Okay," Donovan said, sensing that the young woman was trying as hard to work out what to do as she was trying to do it properly.

He took her arm and led her downstairs to wait for pizza. They could do a full debrief before they had to leave for Washington.

Although, as it became apparent the following evening, there wasn't much going on. Thanks to the not-really-fortuitous existence of the robot that looked like Buffy Summers the demon population, and indeed that civilian one, believed that she was still alive.

Dawn snuck off upstairs after dinner. Giles, Xander and Anya left to pack and Spike to secure his crypt.

Willow agreed to pack for Tara, and disappeared as well. Tara dug her keys out of her purse and handed them Donovan.

"Here are my keys, they open everything. I don't what we are expecting to come of this trip. But Giles seemed to just assume that it was happening, and I think we all want to do something. Good luck."

"Thank you."

"Tara?" Willow called. "Do you want the white ones or the purple ones?"

"Ah, you choose," she answered.

"We're done then," Willow said.

"Okay. Dawn?" Tara called.

Dawn appeared at the top of the stairs with her suitcase in one hand and a book in the other.

Donovan stayed where he was and Tara climbed the stairs to make sure Dawn had packed everything.

"I'm going to say good bye to Buffy-bot," Dawn announced.

Before Tara could protest Dawn had disappeared into Buffy's room.

"Dawn, we have to leave now," Tara called.

Dawn appeared again and picked up her suitcase. Donovan opened the door and helped them load their stuff into the car. He closed the door as they drove off and turned to find himself face to face with the robot.

"I waited. And I said goodbye to Dawn. But now it time to patrol. There are demons outside, you know?"

"Yes," Donovan said, still unsure of how to treat her.

"But you should meet my friends first. They would like to patrol too."

"Okay," the robot said, smiling brightly.

Donovan wondered if there was anyway of having someone make her less bright and sparkly.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

The airport was a lousy place to spend a Friday night, but none of three of them noticed that should have been spending it doing other things.

"I hate airports," Donna said. "I thought that it was just hospitals, but airports are also too clean."

"Donna, we've been here for ten minutes," Toby said.

"And I'm getting nervous," she said.

"Not as much as I am," C.J said, slowly.

She'd seen a large group of people come out of baggage claim together. Toby looked the way she was.

"Is that them?" Donna whispered.

"Yeah," Toby said.

He took a couple a steps forward to wait for them. Giles noticed them and lead his group over. They stopped a few feet behind him as he walked up to meet Toby.

"Good to see, Pokey," he said.

"You too, Ripper, although I wish it hadn't happened that we had to," Toby said.

"You can't change the past, Toby."

"And we're not sure about the future either, Rupert."

They each waved their groups over. The two White House staffers faced the Scooby gang of six. The two 'leaders' introduced each other.

Giles smiled briefly at the women and waited for Toby to introduce them. Donna waved quickly when Toby said her name. The little dark haired girl smiled briefly back, and Donna felt her support. She didn't look at Mr Giles.

C.J looked straight at him when she was introduced. They was no way he didn't know who she was. She could feel the redhead and the tall man at the back watching the interaction. But she was watching the Watcher.

Giles saw the vulnerability in C.J. She kept it hidden well now. And she was trying to be defiant. But it reminded him so much of Buffy when she said she was going to face the Master. He had spoken to Miles Winters when his Slayer had died, but neither of them had even known what had happened. To bring this woman down, or build her to what she was, it can't have been easy.

Toby was slightly unnerved by C.J's lack of response to being introduced. All C.J was interested in was being on reasonable terms with the man who had known her Watcher. It was Giles's turn to introduce people and he suddenly realised that he didn't know how to do it. Toby had simply given names, and from they'd discussed in the plane, that was all that was needed. But the Scooby gang was more complicated.

"Dawn Summers," he said, drawing Dawn forward to stand beside him. "She's Buffy's sister."

Dawn glanced up at the people for moment from trained politeness. The only reason she wasn't running away was the litany in head reminding her that she knew more than these people about much more important things. Donna smiled warmly at her and Dawn felt a little more comfortable.

"That's Willow Rosenberg, she's a witch," Giles said, gesturing to where the red head was standing next to Dawn.

To pulled Xander to his other side. "This is Xander Harris, officially he's a carpenter."

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," Xander said. He offered his hand professionally and they each shook hands with him. He seemed a man who would judge people by their handshakes.

"Tara Maclay, ah, also a witch."

Tara waved from where she was standing behind Willow. She narrowed her eyes at Giles's hesitation.

"I'm Willow's girlfriend," she said.

"But you're still a witch right?" Donna insisted.

"Yes, that too," Tara said.

"Good."

"I'm Anya Jenkins," Anya introduced herself. She shook hands with everyone, as Xander had done, but she seemed much more excited by it.

"That's Spike," Giles said, waving his hand at Spike, who was standing at the back.

He hadn't taken his eyes of C.J. And she'd looked at each person in turn to remember their faces. She looked at Spike now and their eyes met.

"Slayer," he said, with what passed for a friendly grin.

C.J stared at him a moment before rounding on Giles.

"I do not believe you people," she said hotly. "You know he killed her, don't you? You do know she had a little boy who wouldn't let go of the case she'd owned. He bought his freedom by ratting out his 'associates' and spent the whole evening boasting that he'd downed another Slayer."

"What can I say, luv? I changed," Spike said with a shrug.

"'I'm not going to change. I'm a vampire, Bit, be evil forever,'" C.J said, in a bad impersonation of Spike's accent. But her contempt was strong.

Neither Donna nor Toby had any idea of what was happening. The Scoobies didn't either, except Giles who had read all the Watchers' diaries after Angelus had returned. Dawn turned the Summers' disgusted sneer on Spike. He knew exactly what she meant.

Spike squatted down so he could look up at Dawn.

"You trusted me, Dawn. And so did Buffy. She trusted me with you."

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out," Dawn spat.

Spike gripped her shoulders, "If I were human, I'd be dead, Dawn. We've got a chance to bring Buffy back, and the Watcher's leading the way. You know what she meant to me."

Dawn blinked back tears. And tried to maintain her scowl.

Spike didn't know what to do. He could loose her. How would he protect her if she wouldn't let him? How would he survive her thinking it hadn't been for her? He just stared at her, wanting her to believe him.

"You called her 'Bit,'" Dawn said.

Spike chuckled, a little, but kept his weight on Dawn's shoulders.

"It's a name, luv. And you're the only 'little Bit' I care about. You know that right?"

Before Dawn could say that she did, Spike leaped to his feet and turned around, pushing Dawn behind him. C.J spun on her heel, facing the opposite direction to Spike. Willow glanced quickly from Spike to C.J and squeezed Tara's hand. They stood between Spike and C.J watching the scattered crowd wandering through the airport lounge. Softly they began to chant.

C.J took the two stakes she had from her jacket and threw one to Spike.

"Spike!"

He caught it and went back to scanning the crowd.

"What's going on?" Giles asked.

"I don't know," C.J said. Spike shrugged.

From directly in front of Tara and Willow's joined hands, a slow blue flame appeared on the floor and formed a ring around the White House staffers and the Scooby gang and their luggage.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Willow and Tara were chanting in couplets. C.J and Spike were each trying to see past the now shoulder high flames and into the airport lounge. The others were gripping their stakes and trying to see something they could attack.

"Urere!" Willow called.

"Servare!" Tara said.

"Delere!"

"Tueri!"

"This isn't working," Giles said.

He looked around quickly and held a hand out to Toby, behind C.J and Donna.

"Pokey!"

"Ripper?" Toby said, very much 'you can't be thinking that.'

"Take Dawn's hand."

Dawn took a couple a steps backwards so Toby could take her hand as well as Giles's. He had to drop his stake, it rolled and when it hit the flames it disappeared.

Giles joined in Willow and Tara's chanting, changing the rhythm.

"Dicere!"

"Interimere!"

"Conservare!"

"Exponere!"

"Peredere!"

"Custodire!"

"Impertire!"

"You dare to think you can question me?" a voice asked from nowhere.

"Let us pass," Giles said, refusing to look for the voice.

"You think you know what can pass?" it asked, in a slight Italian accent.

"And you do?"

"I can stop it coming to pass"

"Here?" Giles asked, incredulous, "You think you can away with doing anything here?"

"I know what you are, Spear-maker, your people will protect the world from knowledge of what you do. And they will them protect from you, too, Writer. And the Slayers. You cannot stop what will come, but I can stop what may be. I can stop it here."

The flames leaped higher, C.J and Spike looked up to watched the top. Toby was pulled backwards as Dawn stepped into the centre of the circle. She bumped into Anya.

"There is no one here to die for you now, Key. And there was never anyone for the Demon," the flames leaped in front of Anya.

"I object!" Xander called, "recuso!"

The flames moved closer.

"Stare!" Willow, Tara and Giles cried together.

"The Light and the Dark," the voice said, mockingly. There was a pause. "But the First Witch is not here. And the Lord and the Leader are not. You are not all here."

"Who should be here?" Giles asked, "who do you want to stop?"

"The one who should have been and wasn't, the one who should not be but is, the Key, the Fighter, the one who knows and the one who feels, the Demon, the Seer, the Spear-maker, the Writer, the Leader, the Highest Ranked and the First Witch. You need all to find Last One and drag her back. I have not stopped it, know the consequences."

The flames sunk into the floor, leaving a string of scuff marks around them. C.J, Spike and Donna stepped back and breathed a collective sigh of relief, even the vampire. Willow and Tara had been bracing themselves against the force of the flames and fell forward onto the floor.

"Phew?" Xander asked.

"Phew!" Dawn agreed.

Anya grinned and grabbed Xander's arm.

"You stuck up for me," she cooed, "that's something that fi–"

Xander kissed her before she could finish the word.

Giles knelt and rubbed the marks on the floor. Toby crouched beside him.

"Does it make sense?" he asked.

"Maybe," Giles answered.

Tara took a deep breath. She let it out slowly and took another.

"Willow?"

Willow swallowed.

"Willow, what was that spell?"

Willow shook her head and swallowed again.

C.J took Donna's hand. Donna looked around the airport curiously. No one had noticed anything.

"They never do," C.J whispered, with half a smile.

Spike turned back to Dawn. She wrapped her arms around him. Spike laughed in shock, and he could hear her heart beat.

"I would die for you, Bit," he said, amused, and bemused at the sentiment.

"You're already dead," she said.

"So it'll be hard for someone kill me," he said.

Dawn snorted.

"Do you remember the list of names it gave us?" Toby asked.

"Should have been and wasn't, should not be but is, Key, Fighter, one who knows, one who feels, Demon, Seer, Spear-maker, Writer, Leader, Highest Ranked, First Witch," Giles said.

"'Yes' would have sufficed," Toby said.

"Is there somewhere we can go?" Tara asked.

She had helped Willow to her feet, but the shorter witch was leaning heavily on her girlfriend.

"We have a car," C.J said.

Tara picked up a bag and with an arm around Willow, starting walking out. C.J picked up a bag and followed. So did Donna.

The others followed one by one. Everyone had questions, but no one could ask for a answer. The confrontation had felt like the beginning of the end, and they had no idea what the end was. Or even what 'next' would look like.

There were, in fact, two cars. Splitting up would have required some sort of communication, so they piled the luggage into one limousine and piled themselves into the other. Dawn ended up on Xander's lap and Willow on Tara's. The car was silent while everyone tried to rationalise their feeling.

The only person not bound by the post-strange-event question taboo was Anya.

"What was that fiery thing?" she asked, opening the floodgates.

"It wasn't the demon we've been up against, I've seen pictures of that," Toby said.

"Unless it was the mojo Willow pulled," Xander said.

"No, Willow's spell was something else," Tara said.

Willow: "Hey, I had to do something."

Giles: "At least I could talk to it."

Spike nodded to C.J, "Thank you, Slayer," he said.

C.J snorted.

"I want to kill you," Donna told him, calmly.

"Really. Why didn't you, then?"

Donna: "C.J didn't."

Spike: "Why didn't you?"

C.J: "Miles told me not to."

Xander: "What was that that I said?"

Anya: "You said 'I object' when it said that there was no one who would die for me. Was it an 'it'? I thought that it might have been a 'she'."

"She," Willow murmured.

"No, after that," Xander insisted.

Giles: "Recuso, Latin for 'I object.'"

Tara whispered urgently to Willow, "I didn't know that, how could you know that?"

Willow: "I made a connection with her."

Tara: "You made a connection with that, where does that sort of idea come from, Willow? That sort of magic is so dangerous, you can get sucked in to something like that."

Willow: "Well, I didn't, I'm fine, really."

Spike: "He was a good man."

C.J: "No he wasn't. He made a deal with you. And he honoured it. You wouldn't have."

Spike: "I did, didn't I?"

C.J: "Because you knew I wouldn't. Robin wouldn't let go of her bag."

Spike: "I was evil, Ms Cregg. I was a vampire, she was a Vampire Slayer, we fought, I won. I was vain enough, and strong enough to seek her out. She was vain enough and strong enough to fight me. But even her little boy wasn't enough to keep through the fight. All Slayers have a death wish."

"What's your name when it's not Spike?" Donna asked quickly.

Spike: "William."

C.J: "William what?"

Spike: "Don't know. Forgot."

Xander: "Forgot?"

Spike: "You forget a lot in 130 years. Hang on, Watcher gave us visitors' cards for the big house. Here 'tis, 'William Lancaster'. Hey, maybe I'm related to one of the kings."

Xander: "Yeah, you're just what the British royalty needs."

"Where are we going?" Dawn asked.

Her voice cut through the murmured conversations that filled the car. There was a stillness for a moment while Dawn faced the silence.

"We'll take you to the English Embassy, they'll be able to put you up for the night. You'll be able to meet the President on Sunday when he comes back from church."

For C.J, Donna and Toby Saturday was a normal work day. The others spent it waiting in nervous contemplation.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

The marines on front security at the White House had been confused by the arrival of a mixed group of seven resolute people led by three senior aides early on a Sunday morning. So early in fact that it had been practically dark outside.

With C.J, Toby and Donna leading the group in the passes had been checked only briefly by security. The blonde haired young man had seemed particularly put out.

Donna and C.J had taken the group on a little tour of the West Wing, keeping out of Leo's way. Toby had disappeared to collect some sheafs of paper from his office.

C.J had booked them in as college tour, which meant they were allowed to be in the Roosevelt Room and supplied with food.

The Sunnydale group and C.J and Donna were grouped around one end of the table with the room, while Toby had placed himself at the other to write. Willow was asking all sorts of questions about the White House and politics.

"I tried studying Political Science when I was at college," Donna said.

"Yeah, well, I took it up after I had to drop Psych," Willow said.

"I tried that, too," Donna said, blushing. "Why did you drop out?"

Willow shared a glance with Xander.

"Well, it turned out that out lecturer was a mad scientist who was heading up a governmental demon research lab. She had her teacher's aides out tracking demons at night."

"They did horrible things to the balance of power in Sunnyhell's not so under-world," Spike said.

"Only because you dropped a few rungs, Spike," Xander said.

"What happened to her?" C.J asked.

"She was killed by they monster she made," Willow said bluntly.

"But then we had to kill it," Xander said, with contrasting enthusiasm. "We had to get Buffy into the room with it, then we had to combine our essences with her so she could perform the spell. She needed Willow's power and Giles's Sumerian. And I was the heart," he added.

"He tells me it was all right and proper," Anya said.

"What do the rest of you study?" C.J asked, noticing Giles's tense expression.

"I'm dead," Spike said.

"I had a standard education for girls in my time," Anya said. "But that was over a thousand years ago. I taught myself everything else. Except the things that Xander taught me," she grinned at her fiancé.

"And you, Xander?" Donna asked.

"Oh, I don't go to college. Or, I did, but it was to work in the bar, or rescue Buffy from evil fraternity demons. He won't mind, will he?" he asked, obviously referring to the President.

"Don't tell him," Toby said, from the other end of the table.

He drew a line across a page a typed text and picked up his notepad.

"I- I thought he was better than that," Tara said, trying to put her thought in order.

"I don't care what the President thinks of any of you," Toby said. "But I do care about the hour of lecture on the state of public schools and colleges in this country."

Josh knocked one of the door and stuck his head in. Everyone was silent. He looked at Donna. He raised his eyebrow and Donna stared at him, impervious. Josh narrowed his eyes, Donna shrugged.

"Hey, Josh," C.J said, when the silent conversation had ended.

"Hey. What's going on here?" Josh asked, gesturing down the table. "Why are you all here?"

"I'm not here," Toby said. "I'm just not in my office."

Josh turned back to the other group. Giles stood up and introduced himself, shaking Josh's hand. He introduced the group around the table.

"They're from Sunnydale," C.J said. "Mr Giles is a librarian. He knew the President when he was in England."

Josh smiled and shook his head, agreeing with C.J's assessment that it was all very strange and didn't really deserve consideration.

"Do I need you?" he asked Donna.

"Jefferson and Gianelli at 12. Murray wants 3 million. The statistics report is on your desk."

"Great, thanks."

The phone on the table in front of Toby rang and he picked it up.

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm, we're in the Roosevelt room. 'See', okay."

He collected his papers together and stood up.

Donna and C.J were looking at him curiously. Josh narrowed his eyes. Toby out stared him. Josh shrugged, bid the Scoobies farewell and left, with a last look at Donna.

"We're heading down to basement C. Lord Marbury will meet us there," Toby said.

Giles stood up quickly and tried to smooth his hair.

Willow stood up to smooth Giles's hair.

"What's so special about this Lord Marbury?" she asked.

"He's England's Ambassador," Donna offered, as everyone stood up.

"He's the lord Watcher," Giles said.

Toby's hand froze above the door nob.

"Lord John Marbury is the lord Watcher?" he repeated.

Giles's nodded.

"The council trusted the ultimate security of the Slayer and entire magical community of the English speaking world to a mad man who scares the White House Chief of Staff?"

"I don't care what you think of him, Pokey, John of Marbury is my lord Watcher."

Toby sighed and rubbed his head. Then he nodded resolutely and led them out of the room.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Josh grabbed the statistics memo off his desk and walked back to Leo's office. He stood in the doorway, thinking of how to ask the question he thought he wanted to ask.

"Hey, Josh," Leo said, looking up at his deputy.

"Leo," Josh said.

"What's happened now?" Leo asked, wearily.

It was Josh's presence and strange hesitance that had that effect. Normally working on Sunday mornings was good, with the President out of the office and Senators out of town.

"I don't have Donna this morning," Josh said.

Leo just looked up at him. Josh realised how 'bad' that sounded.

"She's in the Roosevelt room with C.J, Toby and a group of people from Sunnydale. There's something odd about them. Toby said he was just working there, but he was with them. And there's no way that guy is a librarian. C.J said he knew the President."

"Josh, I'm not prepared to go into conspiracy theories with you right now. If you need something typed you can give it to Margaret."

"Leo, if anything is happening…"

"I'll let you know if you need to know," Leo said.

Despite his having taken the issue to Abbey Leo was not willing to discuss anything with Josh. Josh nodded.

"I just thought I'd tell you, in case it meant anything. And the President wanted his report," he said, waving the papers.

Leo checked his watch. "He should be back now, go through."

Josh knocked on the door connecting Leo's office to the Oval. The President called him through. He looked puzzled when Josh appeared and not Leo.

"What can I do for you?"

"I've looked at the statistics, sir," Josh said, holding out the report.

"Thank you, Josh," the President said, taking the report.

He hadn't really spoken to Josh since the announcement to run. Actually, it had been an announcement to win. And Josh was still wary around him, but it was something more bothering him now. The President waited.

"Rupert Giles and some friends of his from Sunnydale are in the Roosevelt room with C.J, Toby and Donna. C.J said you knew Mr Giles," Josh said.

"Ah, they're here," the President exclaimed, obviously delighted. "I'd better go and say hello! Thank you, Josh."

Once again Josh found that he had been dismissed. "Thank you, sir," he said to the President's retreating back and returned to Leo's office.

The President stopped at his aide's desk.

"Find Toby for me, can you, Charlie? I don't think he's in his office."

Charlie called Toby's cell phone.

"He's in basement C, sir," Charlie said, keeping the question out of his voice.

"Tell him I'm on my way down."

"The President's coming to you, Toby," Charlie relayed.

"Hi, Leo."

Leo looked up and found Abbey standing in his doorway. He narrowed his eyes.

"Margaret was away from her desk. Have you eaten today?"

"Yes," Leo said shortly. Abbey didn't take the hint.

"He's running again."

"That's what he said when he was asked the question."

"He's running again, Leo."

"I'm not going to discuss this with you, Abbey," Leo said. "I will advise the President and I will follow his orders to the best of my ability."

Abbey sighed. She sank into the chair facing him and watched Leo. She'd know she wouldn't be able to bait him, at least not on this.

"How was church?" Leo asked.

"Okay. 'Acts.' He drew some interesting things out of it," Abbey said, not really concentrating on Leo. She looked at the door that connected his office to her husband's.

"He's meeting people in the Roosevelt room," Leo offered.

"No, it was empty when I passed it on the way here," Abbey said.

"Did you ask Charlie?"

"No, I thought I'd come here first and pick a fight with you," Abbey said. She stood up. "I'll go and see him now. He's not going to be anywhere he can't be interrupted?"

Leo shrugged, but smiled. "Not unless you're already with him."

Abbey chuckled.

"But have you…?"

"I'll tell you if I have," Abbey said.

She walked through the Oval office to inquire of Charlie the whereabouts of the President.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

The group from the Roosevelt room entered Basement C. This is where they'd had the Sagittarius meeting to discuss how to disclose the President's condition. And C.J knew that Sam had had to go over the First Lady's interview with her before they went on air. They would probably end up in here again for campaign strategy. The room was dark and slightly musty. The blankets that Donna had arranged had been removed and the room was cold.

Lord John Marbury seem actually surprised, and positively delighted to see them. As much as C.J liked Lord Marbury he wasn't what she though of a Watcher type. Even Toby seemed more able to take charge of what they were doing and get them through it.

But Toby had his small-boy-in-front-of-the-principle look when confronted with English Ambassador.

"Thank you so very much for so very far," Marbury said, with a smile for the assembled visitors.

"My Lord, thank you for this opportunity," Giles said, offering his hand.

"Not at all, your Grace, no more than I'm meant to do, saving the world, it's why I'm here."

"Oh, no I'm not," Giles said, when Marbury had finished his spiel. "I am not Watcher to the active Slayer."

"Who is then?" Marbury demanded, looking scandalised. "Toby?"

"No, no, my Lord. Donna wasn't Called as part of the Slayer line, and I'm not really a Watcher anyway. I am very sorry about earlier, I had no idea that you held the position you do until about five minutes ago."

Marbury waved Toby's concern away. The others were looking at Toby and Giles; they were both behaving in an oddly subservient manner.

"Who is the Master Watcher?"

"I don't think we have one, my Lord," Giles offered apologetically. "When Buffy died for the first time the Slayer Kendra was Called. When she died Faith was Called. Faith is the current Slayer in the line. She's serving a prison sentence in Los Angeles. Her Watcher, Mr Wesley Wyndam-Pryce was fired."

Marbury frowned.

"We'll make do," he said brightly, after a moment's contemplation. "When the President arrives we can do introductions."

"I'm here, John," the President said, coming down the stairs.

The group of visitors shuffled sideways, so they weren't between the President and Lord Marbury, but were still all together.

The President ran his eye over the group. Xander snapped to attention and saluted when the President looked at him. The President saluted in return but looked questioningly at Xander.

"Ah, sorry," he murmured, sheepish. "There was a thing once."

Giles insisted that everyone be presented. No one had a chance to protest. The President was thrilled to meet them all, but Willow had no illusions about him remembering all their names. She had seen that look on some of her Professors.

"My Lord, Mr President, may I present Miss Dawn Summers, sister to Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Dawn fought the urge to curtsy. Marbury gave her a particularly piercing look and Dawn blushed. The President shook her hand, but offered her a grandfatherly smile.

"Wait a sec, he's in charge?" the President demanded, pointing at Marbury.

"He's the Lord Watcher," Toby said with a shrug.

"You did ask him to call me, sir," Giles said.

"He just sort of took over," the President explained. "I thought that you'd be in charge when you arrived."

"He's the only one who knows what's happening," Giles said. "Forgive me, my Lord, but Toby gave the impression that you were quite eccentric."

"Oh, yes," Marbury said, "but I was chosen by her Majesty and the council of Watchers to oversee the security and safety of the defence of this world. Or something like that. I assure you I know what I'm doing."

The President didn't really have a counter argument. He also did not have anyone to support him in it. Only Donna might have, but she quite liked Marbury.

"My Lord, Mr President," Giles continued, "may I present Tara Maclay and Willow Rosenberg, both powerful witches."

Marbury seemed about to ask them a question until Giles shook his head. Tara smiled nervously at both men. And was worried by how light-headed Willow seemed; she shook the President's hand vigorously. But he seemed amused by the awed expression on Willow's face. Though perhaps a little nervous of the magic element.

"My Lord, Mr President, may I present, Anya Jenkins, formerly the Vengeance demon, Anyanka."

"I'm human now," Anya said, smiling brightly. "Xander tell me I'm not very good sometimes."

Xander chuckled good-naturedly. He would have introduced himself, but Giles stopped him.

"My Lord, Mr President, may I present Xander Harris, the Heart of our operations in Sunnydale."

"Actually, I'm a carpenter," Xander said as he shook hands with them.

"That is an honourable profession," the President said.

Giles took a deep breath before finishing.

"My Lord, Mr President, may I present Spike."

"William Lancaster," Spike said, offering his hand to the President. He avoided looking at Marbury, who seemed almost amused by his presence.

"Why do they call you Spike?"

"S'my name. You don't really want to know why."

"He use to torture people with railway spikes," Marbury said, matter-of-factly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, William."

Spike shrugged.

"Right, all done? good," Marbury said.

"My Lord," Giles asked, tentatively, "what so you hope to achieve here?"

"I have a book," he proclaimed.

Willow and Giles stepped forward eagerly. Even Toby seemed to be drawn by the battered leather bound volume Marbury pulled out of his jacket pocket. Tara watched Willow, amused. The others looked slightly bored. Spike scoffed, and Dawn rolled her eyes.

"Watchers and books!" C.J said, almost fondly.

"Do they train that in them?" the President asked Dawn.

Dawn blinked and looked up at him. He'd snuck up on her, and his expression was so mischievous she didn't know how to reply.

"Willow and Giles have always been like that, ah, sir. I don't know about Toby."

The President paused. "I think I'm like that sometimes," he said.

"What's the bloody book say?" Spike demanded.

"This book," Marbury said, waving triumphantly, "is the Written Before the Son Prophecies."

The blood drained from Giles's face. He couldn't decided whether he was horrified or excited.

No one else knew that any reaction was called for, although Anya and Spike both had calculating expressions. C.J watched Giles's reaction and sighed. There was going to be trouble for whatever they were called here to do.

"We're going to bring Miss Buffy Summers back."

"No, you're not," the President said.

"I'm sorry, sir," Toby said, "but you don't have any jurisdiction in this decision."

"If it's in the Prophecies than it is to be done," Giles said, slowly.

"We can do that?" Willow demanded, "Really, do it? Here, now? I – I thought the spell required all sorts of things, the urn of Osiris and, well, Buffy's grave."

She stepped back from the look Giles turned on her. Tara held her hand.

"This is very different to that," Marbury said, gently. "There is only one copy of the Prophecies, and it belongs to the Lord Watcher. They detail many events and possibilities. This is one of the crossroads in the war the council is waging."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Xander said, looking around the group. "We're talking about raising the dead. Seriously talking about raising the dead," he added, looking at Willow.

"If it doesn't work we have to deal with it. And we have to worry about Dawn and Spike."

They both looked at him, but neither of them protested Xander's point.

"You," he pointed at Giles, "are going to let him do it because of some Watcher thing. Did we learn nothing about what happened to Faith? You're in charge," Xander said, sounding doubtful as he looked Marbury over, "but you're crazy, the President doesn't think you should be in charge and we don't know anything about you. You're working off a prophecy, because we all love them."

He turned to Donna and C.J, "I don't know what the deal is, but you two are Slayers, why aren't you saying anything about this?

"Can someone tell me what's going on?"

There was silence. Toby wasn't willing to venture into the issues Xander had raised about the Watcher's Council and it seemed Marbury was also circumspect. Giles was trying to find a way to explain the purpose of the Lord Watcher. The President had no jurisdiction, and certainly no expertise. He was more worried about the young girl by his side.

Dawn had been through her attempt to raise the dead, and didn't want to do to Buffy what she had almost done to their mother. Spike looked smug. Xander had, however implicitly, recognised his feelings for Buffy. Tara had a vice like grip on Willow's arm to stop her protesting Xander's dismissal of their plans.

Anya had an arm around Xander, patting his back. He'd slumped a bit after his outburst, he was however still waiting for some kind of explanation. He wanted Buffy back, and would be willing to go through with what ever it was. But he needed someone to justify it first.

Donna and C.J were standing back from the circle the group had formed watching Marbury and Toby. Although they both glanced up at the door occasionally.

The silence was broken by the door opening and firm footsteps descending the stairs.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?"

"Abbey," the President sighed.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Abbey ignored her husband. She hadn't finished being mad with him over his declaration yet. Instead she weighed up the group taking in the menacing blonde man, C.J and Donna trying to be inconspicuous, the girl relying on Jed's strength and the two women standing next to them.

"Abbey?" the brown haired one murmured.

The President and Willow both were shocked at Tara's forwardness. Everyone was surprised by the First Lady's response.

"Tara?" she whispered, staring at the young woman.

Tara smiled nervously, but Abbey reached out and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Oh, baby. I'm so sorry. I was sorry to hear about your mother. I tried to find you, but you'd hidden yourself too well."

Tara was pushed to arms length so Abbey could her over.

"I don't blame you though. You do know you could have called me? Anytime?"

"I – I couldn't do that. The- they found me. Bu- but Willow and the others wouldn't let them take me. Did they do the demon thing to you too?"

"Bah!" Abbey said, "I'm a witch. I don't believe in demons."

Everyone raised their eyebrows.

"There really are demons," Anya said, anxiously.

"Too right there are," Spike said, trying to look scornfully at Abbey.

Marbury stepped forward offering his hand.

"Lord John Marbury, Wiz One Black," he said.

"Abigail Bartlet, Wit A Five."

"Rupert Giles, Wiz One Red."

"Witch? Abbey, what the heck is going on?" her husband demanded.

"I asked first," Abbey said.

"Actually, ma'am, I did," Xander said.

"Right, yes, of course, explanations!" Marbury cried dramatically.

"He's in charge?" Abbey asked speculatively.

"We were getting to that," C.J said.

"Lord Marbury is my Lord Watcher," Toby said, with the implication that that should have been enough explanation for anyone.

"Like the Archbishop of Canterbury," Marbury said. "I was appointed by her Majesty and accepted by the Watcher's Council in England. I have the same authority of the Council as the Archbishop has over a Morning Congregation Committee Meeting in Sussex. Stopping India and Pakistan blowing each up is a vitally important task, but it's simpler than interpreting this little book."

The President decided then to completely give up any thought of understanding Marbury. For the first time the man had given them a straight forward, and unaffected explanation. And it made no sense.

Marbury waved the book again for emphasis.

"But mostly my job is looking after the book, unless it says something relevant. Which it does now. It said 'one plus one equals three.'"

"What's the book?" Abbey asked.

"The Written Before the Son Prophecies," Marbury answered.

"I've heard of them. In the Magda books. Okay," she said, thinking. "How does your position relate to Toby and Mr Giles."

"They're Watchers."

"I'm not," Toby said. "But I was going to be."

"How do you know Tara?" Willow asked.

Abbey's expression brightened. "I'm her aunt," she said. "Her mother was my sister."

Willow's draw dropped and she stared at Tara.

"She – The First Lady is your aunt? And you never said."

"I didn't know who she had married," Tara said, with an apologetic look at Abbey. "And mom didn't talk about her sister once… I wasn't sure…"

"Once a week she wrote," Abbey said. "Told me all about you."

"As lovely and heart-warming as this family reunion no doubt is for you," Spike sneered. "The boss bloke was going to tell how to get Buffy back."

"Yeah," Xander said. Annoyed at agreeing with Spike again.

The look Abbey turned on Spike was politely questioning. After about ten seconds he broke.

"William Lancaster," he said.

Tara took the hint and introduced all the other Scoobies.

When she finished with, "my girlfriend, Willow Rosenberg." Abbey nodded politely to Willow, as she had to everyone else and Willow grinned. It wasn't often that she was introduced as Tara's girlfriend instead of the other way around. And she'd just been personally introduced to the First Lady.

Everyone else was beginning to get quite anxious about Marbury's book. Donna and the President both felt that they in way over their heads. And actually out of their minds. C.J didn't like the idea of prophecies, and it seemed that the group from Sunnydale had much the same idea. She was beginning to feel bitter towards Miles Winters again. Buffy's friends knew about her Calling and helped her. They were going to have to tell Josh and Sam about Donna, it would make it easier.

Dawn and Xander wanted to be able to do something. They now had three witches, two slayers, two and half Watchers and the President in the room, which severely limited the powers that either of them could offer. The dictations from Lord Marbury and his desire to obey them were reminding Toby, forcibly of why he hadn't become a Watcher. Anybody could take his spot in this basement but while they were saving the world nobody was out there making it worth saving.

Willow was excited by the prospect of doing some serious magic. Tara was concerned for her. And Abbey was beginning to have serious concerns about the redhead, herself.

Lord Marbury knew exactly what he had to do and how to do it. He began to read.

"This book is written in my native language. The Fates tell me that those who need it will be able to read it. This is introduction is written as the Fate's tell me how. The Man who will be called God, and by God will be born in nine years time. The Son born of death will be born in two thousand and seventeen years. The chance will come one half of one year before. Please read the descriptions of the information I have described as carefully as possible. I do not know everything about the images I have been shown. I hope I have given you enough information to make the right decision."


	20. Twentieth Chapter

What will happen, will happen. And what has to happen will be done, by the Call of Need or supplication to Osiris or invocation of Gilderash. The latest opens the gates to another world, and they must be closed by the blood which opened the portal into which the Slayer fell, and the blood of the son and daughter's daughter. Osiris will ask a testing, and the forces call to them a darkness. If this is the path that must be taken, there are many steps to many endings. The Lover will know hate, true hate. And the one who knows will loose the one who feels, and the world will lie on the shoulders of the one who sees.

This second is the darkest path, but the surest to the strength that will be required when the last days come. The chances that things will be different are many, but it shall conspire that you will not see where they are when they are there. Only in hindsight will you glance at what may have been. The end must come and you must be able to fight.

If this book is read there, in the war room, shall be gathered the greatest group ever gathered with any Slayer. And with them, the three strongest since the three who first called the Slayer shall come together. Although they did not know each other before they came. Their strength will need the others to be focused. They will make the Call of Need.

The apocalypse must be allowed to come. It will always come and if any tries to prevent the beginnings there will be no chance to prevent the end. As always, the centre will be the mouth of hell. Know that you will allow the hellmouth to open. Know that it must happen, and the last Slayer to fight alone shall be the last to guard the hellmouth. Know that this needs to be done.

The strength of the one who knows, the one who feels and the First Witch shall be joined, for they are joined already by ties of praise. This shall be the focus, and the pain will be shared. The one to call will be the sister, who never was a daughter.

The need is what you lost when the fighter died. The Key, her saviour; The Spear-maker, his hunter; The Writer, his hiding place; The Highest Ranked, his screen; the Leader, his certainty; the one who knows, her innocence; the one who feels, her faith; the one who sees, his commander; the Demon, her moment. The ones who should have been and wasn't lost her rest; the one who should not be but is lost her dedication. The confusion lost his explanation. The First Witch will feel the loss of the family she found. And she will hold the group together from their loss.

The Key and Fighter stand together in their loss and each will gain differently. The pain is due, and it must be done. If you do this, do it for yourselves. Those with the greatest to gain will face the greatest losses. Your friend does not need you as you need her. But need is enough.

Of the threes, one plus one will, with the one who returns, make three. The one who should have been but wasn't and the one who should not be but is, not the one who is. The Spear-maker and Highest Ranked, not the Rogue. The thinker and feeler, not the mother. The lover and the enemy, not the friend. One plus one will equal three. Seven plus six will bring out one.

Do all will it so?

The group was staring at Marbury as he asked the last question. He looked around the bemused faces.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Spike demanded.

"Spike," Willow gestured to Dawn.

"Do you all agree to the risks in this plan?" Marbury asked. "Do you agree to pay the price for what you need? Do you promise against everything to finish what you begin, despite any argument that may be made against it?"

He addressed himself to the Sunnydale group and slowly they each nodded. So did Abbey and C.J, who each had some idea of what the price might be.

Marbury asked for permission from the last three with an impatient raise of one eyebrow. They shrugged. He pointed a finger at each of them.

"Know that you have sworn," he said.

"Have you?" the President asked.

"I do swear to walk this path, unto the end whatever may be said, and pay the price for my walking. As do all in this room. It will begin."


	21. Chapter XXI

Donovan sighed as he returned to the house at dawn. His schedule allowed eight hours sleep between 10 am and 6 pm. After plugging the robot back in and eating something for breakfast he had three and a half hours to track down Warren Meers. Today he had a meeting with the man at the coffee shop in the main street. He wasn't looking forward to it.

Warren Meers was a stuck up slimy bastard who was convinced of his own intelligence and importance. Donovan felt tempted to beat him down before he even introduced himself.

The young man waited for him expectantly as Donovan sat down. Donovan opted for the off-putting straightforward approach.

"Do you want a job?" he asked.

Meers looked him with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm serious. I've seen your work. I want to offer you a job. Of course, you will have to go through a security check. You'll be working in a classified area."

"Who are you?" Meers asked.

Donovan was pleased. He'd broken through the façade. He was in charge of the conversation. Maybe he could pull it off. Willow's warning was still in his mind.

"My name is Simon Donovan. I can't tell you who I work for. But a few months ago you made a robot for a vampire called Spike."

Meers looked around quickly. Whether he was checking for audience or bugs, Donovan wasn't sure, but he knew neither was there. He had also had one his guys go through the robot's programming. They'd gotten a lot of information. But no one was sure how the language held itself together.

"What do you know about that?" Meers demanded.

"I know exactly what I told you," Donovan said.

Meers was getting paranoid.

"Do you know Willow Rosenberg and Buffy Summers?" Donovan asked.

"Buffy's dead," Meers said.

"Yes. Do you know what that means?"

Warren had thought he'd be able to use this guy. Donovan knew the connotations of his question. Warren swore silently. He hadn't wanted to get caught up with the Slayer's pals until it suited him. The stony look on his interrogator's face overturned Warren's automatic thought to lie.

"Yes."

"I'm helping do her job for a little while. When I have to leave again, I'd like to take you with me. We could do with a robot of our own."

"Who's 'you'?"

"I can't tell you that until you've passed the security clearance checks. Normally I wouldn't even have approached you without doing a basic background screening, but we don't have the facilities where we're set up."

Donovan hid a smile as Meers worked out what he had said. They didn't know anything about him except that he could help them. Willow was right. This man was not to be trusted.

"I'll have to think about it," he said.

"Sure."

"There are people I'll have to talk to."

"If you think they might be able to help us, too, I'd look forward to meeting them," Simon offered.

He didn't like the calculating look Meers had, but didn't think the boy was smart enough to really pull off what he had planned.

"How will I contact you again?" Meers asked.

Donovan suddenly understood. He was meeting an unreconstructed nerd. Meers thought this was going to work out the way TV episodes did. He was playing the part of the evil mastermind, and Simon was the well meaning but dim witted sidekick to the hero.

"We're staying at Buffy's house, you know where that is?"

Meers nodded. Donovan tried not to laugh at the spasm of disappointment that crossed his face.

When Donovan got back, Duncan O'Leary had set up the robot and computer again. Donovan didn't understand the programming language at all, but Duncan was excited by something that he'd found.

"Can you make her less bright and sparkly?" Donovan asked.

"Yeah," Duncan breathed. "It's brilliant. The verbal responses are set up separately to the 'emotional' ones. It's a mix and match system, takes up much less room, if you can weed out the obvious clashes. It's straightforward, if you can get the right system of checks in there."

"I assume he did."

"I don't know. I think it might have been a later addition. The first level seems to have been fairly, ah, single minded. The programming is original, just the stock phrases have been updated, and the checks inserted. That was clever work."

"So Willow did that, not this Meers guy?" Donovan asked. He hoped that was the case. Willow would be easier to work with than Meers. And if Meers wasn't as smart, he would be easier to deal with if things, when things, got out of hand.

"It looks like that, yeah. Although I'm not sure how generally the first robot was programmed. She was definitely a sex-bot, but she knew things the original Buffy did, too."

Donovan decided to give up for the moment and go back to bed. He would be able to worry again in the evening.

Leo picked up his phone and dialled the extension to the First Lady's office. He really should apologise for his conduct earlier in the day, even though she seemed to have forgiven him. It wouldn't do for her to drag it out as a past misconduct in some more vital argument.

The phone rang out. He dialled Max's number and got his assistant. She had no idea where the First Lady was, except that she had gone out to find the President. So he called Charlie.

"Is the First Lady with you?" he demanded.

"No, Leo, she isn't," Charlie replied.

"Do you know where she is?"

"She's with the President, Leo," Charlie said.

Leo rued giving the boy a backbone.

"And where's he?"

"I can't tell you, Leo. Mrs Bartlet made it quite clear that they were to be left undisturbed."

"Then I need to talk to C.J," Leo said.

"The best way of doing that is calling her on her own phone," Charlie said.

Leo slammed the phone down and called C.J's number. He heard it divert to Carol's, and then to Donna's phone. When it diverted again to the switchboard he hung up. He called Josh.

"Where's Donna?"

"C.J borrowed her for something. Why?"

"I can't find any of them," Leo said. "Margaret!"

Margaret rushed into the office.

"See if you can find C.J, or Toby, or Donna for me please," he told her.

Margaret nodded.

"Now."

Margaret nodded again before leaving.

"Okay, I've got Margaret on it now, she'll follow them to Manchester if she has to."

"Thanks, Leo. I can't find the finance report for the meeting with Gianelli."

"It's on your desk," Leo said.

"It was, but I picked it up to read it."

"Ask Sam for help," Leo said. "I'll let you know when Margaret gets back. Actually no. I'm coming over now and we'll look ourselves. Sam can man the fort."

"Thanks, Leo."

Leo took a moment to prepare himself for an extended tour of the West Wing with a Donna-less Josh.


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

Willow stood with her back to Tara and the First Lady each of her hands in one of theirs. They held hands too, the three of them forming a triangle. Lord Marbury arranged them saying "here stands the focus." No one except him was allowed to speak until he said so.

C.J had one hand on Abbey's shoulder. Donna stood on C.J's other side, their hands clasped.

"The one who came before and the one who came after," Marbury intoned.

Toby stood on the outside of the circle they were forming, behind Donna. His expression said quite clearly that this was much further into the magic than he had ever wanted to go. The President was standing behind Abbey. He thought that everyone else was crazy. He couldn't believe that this was going to work. But if Marbury was in charge and had said that it was his duty to make sure Abbey didn't go too far, than damned if it would his fault it didn't work.

Anya held Tara and Willow's clasped hands. She was to be the vessel of need. She raised her eyebrows at that. Marbury had shrugged before pushing Xander into the circle beside her. Spike was next, much to Xander's chagrin.

"We call her back to her greatest strengths, her heart and her fight and her love."

Dawn hang on tight to Spike's hand staring blankly in front of her. When Giles had said that they were going to get Buffy most of her had thought that he meant metaphorically, or something equally proper and disappointing. The rest of her had squealed and hid.

Giles stood facing the space left between Donna and Dawn, directly opposite Anya.

Lord Marbury walked around their circle in the middle of basement C of the White House and read the Latin phrases from the little book in his palms. No one heard what he was reading over the beating of their hearts or their breathing. Except Spike, who heard everyone else's breathing. And the President who was trying to translate in his head but kept getting confused by the repetitions.

Slowly the power in the room built. Even the President could feel it and he wondered, vaguely about the secret service agents outside the door. The circle was being pulled together fiercely. They would have been pulled into the middle except for the three men outside, standing fast.

The magic in the little circle between the three witches was becoming visible. It formed a cylinder or swirling cloud, white, blood red and black. The President's concentration kept flicking between Abbey and the Thing at her back. Everyone else's was drawn to the gathering power in the space between Dawn, Donna and Giles.

Slowly it coalesced into the shape of Buffy. Then even more slowly the form took on colour and solidity. The cloud turned bright blue for a moment before Abbey clenched her teeth. Slowly the blue receded.

Buffy looked around at the gathered group.

"What are you all doing here?" she asked. She sounded worried.

"Ma'am, my name is John Marbury," Marbury said.

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "And you're in charge?"

"Yes."

"What am I doing here?"

"We need you."

Buffy smiled brightly. "That's great, really, but you know, I retired. In fact I died. I'd really like it stay that way."

"It can't," Marbury said.

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Why not?" she asked sharply.

"We need you. Everyone here needs you to come back. There are things yet that you need to do. Your resurrection opens gates the world needs to walk thought."

"Well, that's odd. See I thought the world didn't do very much walking on its own. And the walking that it did do, I did. I died; I'd like to rest. It's kinda nice here, you know?"

"I do."

The quiet solemnity in his voice stopped Buffy.

"Hey guys," she said.

She turned so she could smile at Dawn and smoothed her hair behind her ear gently. Dawn looked at her, close to tears. Buffy realised that she had missed the feel of her sister's hair. She stepped away quickly seeing Xander's avid look and the growing fear in Willow's eyes.

"Who are these people?" she asked Marbury.

Marbury gave their names, and their talents. Buffy nodded.

"Why do they need me?" she asked.

They looked strong and healthy enough. The two slayers were intriguing. Both for the fact that they were slayers and the way they were dealing with it. The younger one was worried she would loose her skills. The older one wasn't pleased with being uncovered. The witch was the strongest person in the room. She didn't look like she liked what was going to happen, but she was resolved to do it. And like Tara, when she had truly decided something, nothing would change her mind.

"That is for them to know, and them alone to tell," Marbury said.

Buffy turned to Spike. "You'll keep Dawn safe?"

"With my life."

"You won't put Spike in extra danger?" she asked Dawn.

Dawn shook her head. Spike wondered what care for him had let her ask the question.

"Tara, Willow, you'll make sure Dawn gets off to school in the mornings and does her homework in the evening?"

"Yes, Buffy, but," Willow said.

"You'll be careful with magic and study hard at college?"

"Yes," Willow answered, her voice small.

"Xander, you'll build buildings that won't fall down?"

"Yes, sir."

"You'll train them, Giles, stay with them and help them keep themselves safe?"

"Buffy," he said. But he couldn't say anything more.

"That's enough for me," she said. In the middle of the circle she couldn't avoid anyone. "I like it here. It's warm and comfortable, and I'm safe, and I know that you'll be safe. I'd miss you if I felt anything, but I don't. Can't you just let me rest?"

She turned the last question on Giles. He looked like a Watcher, though. She wondered how much of him was a Watcher, and how much of the Watcher was a mask. If they had to do this, then he wouldn't give her a chance to use his feelings to talk him out if it. She turned her back on him.

Willow was crying. Silent tears ran down her cheeks. She hadn't noticed. Xander had.

"Isn't once enough, Xander?" Buffy demanded.

"No," Xander said.

His certainty struck Buffy hard. They were going to this, she thought. She was dead, and the love of her friends was going to kill her.

"They made a vow," Marbury said. "They can't stop, no matter what arguments anyone makes."

He was still outside the circle. He seemed closer, or further than he was. More real, and less real than the people around him.

"Don't you dare do this. You can't make me do this, and you aren't going to get me to this because I'm guilty that I told them when they had no choice. They could have not started. They could have trusted me to find my own way out if I wanted to, I did last time. How long has it been?"

"Fifteen days," Spike answered instantly.

"It could have been forever," Buffy said. "I haven't felt like this in forever. I had forgotten what it was. I hate it."

"What do you want?" Marbury asked.

It seemed to be a ritual question. But then his voice had never had the emotion or tone of some affected by what was happening.

"I want to see them fight," Buffy told him, pointing to C.J and Donna.

"The circle can't be broken until the spell is finished."

"If I say I want the spell finished, I'm stuck here, aren't I?" Buffy said.

His face darkened for a moment and Buffy rejoiced.

"I don't believe in this," a voice said.

Buffy turned to face the speaker. It was the man behind Willow, Tara and Abbey. He was Abbey's husband, although he hadn't been pleased with the introduction.

"I don't believe in vampires, or demons. I don't believe in vampire slayers, or witches or magic. I don't believe in rasing the dead. I don't believe it can be done, I don't believe it should be done. But every promise should be kept. You promised to protect these people, they promised to bring you back."

Buffy felt the tears coming. She refused to cry over this. She sighed; even now she couldn't be scared little girl she wanted to be.

"Buffy." It was Dawn.

"I'm sorry, Dawn. I don't want to come back. I won't be able to look after you, I can't keep you safe."

"You don't have to," Dawn said. "It's been horrible without you. I don't need you to keep me safe from the world, Buffy. I just need you. I keep forgetting things, like what mom said to me when I broke my arm."

"She said she'd get you a new one if you were good and didn't cry," Buffy said.

Dawn cracked a smile. "That's right! And she said that you'd never got new arm, ever."

Buffy smiled.

"I want Giles to keep them safe," Buffy told Marbury.

"He can't. He can only train you to."

Buffy nodded. She knew that this was coming. When she'd jumped she wondered at how easy it was. Now she knew why. The pressure of being held between dimensions, or universes, or planes was beginning to tell on her. The guilt she had at leaving her friends and Dawn was coming back full force, even though she had had no choice. And it didn't drown at the anger she felt at them being too weak to leave her alone.

"I want the spell to be over," she told Marbury. The snarl in her voice forced him back a step.

"Let each here regain what they lost," he intoned. "The Slayer, her life. The Key, her teacher. The Spear-maker, his general. The Writer, his deepest friend. The Highest Rank, his rank. The Leader, his faith. The one who knows, her leader. The one who feels, her trust. The one who sees, his heart. The Demon, her strength. The oldest, her calling. The youngest, her choice. The fighter, his focus. The First Witch lost nothing, by that which is hers, let the spell be ended."

Abbey clenched her teeth and shut her eyes. The power passing through her was more than she had ever felt. And she didn't like the feel of it. It had been so long since she'd done this.

The cloud between the witches blurred faster and faster. Red, black and white shifting constantly on the surface. Abbey cried out, and Jed stepped forward. He didn't care what Marbury had said about anything; he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her out of the circle. She fell into his arms, breathing heavily.

The cloud disappeared. Buffy fell to the floor with a moan. Spike fell beside her.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

With the circle broken, and Buffy back, Marbury stepped backed and leant against the wall. It would take these people a few moments to regain their sense of the world.

Abbey was cry silently onto her husband's shoulder. Jed stroked her hair gently. Abbey clung to him, trying to draw his strength to replenish her own.

Willow sunk slowly to the floor and leant against Tara's legs. Tara squatted down and gathered Willow into her lap.

"I knew I'd do it," Willow said. "I knew that it was the right thing to do. Oh, Goddess, what was I thinking. I feel all oily."

Tara kissed her gently, but didn't know what to say. She was worried about the power Willow had drawn on for the spell. If she could feel the residue in herself, they were going to need some help.

Donna would have gone to Buffy, but Spike, Giles and Dawn were already on the ground around her. She stepped back with C.J and Toby. C.J had turned her back on the crowd and Marbury. She was facing Toby. He was watching her carefully, but in a strange disinterested manner.

Xander had dropped Spike's hand, but not Anya's.

"She's back," he whispered.

"So, you're happy now?" Anya asked.

"No. We did something terrible here. And bad things are going to happen because of it."

"We didn't know that. We thought she'd been in hell," Anya said. She was no longer surprised that she said 'we'.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"Is that a country song?" Anya asked. "Because then the road out of hell is paved with good intentions, too. Besides, we had to do it. And at least she had some warning. What's up with Spike?"

Xander looked at the Vampire. He was curled into a little ball. When he'd dropped Xander had assumed it was to look after Buffy. No one else seemed to have noticed him.

Giles had reached out to place a tentative hand of Buffy's shoulder. He had thought she'd flinch, but she'd thrown her arms around him and snuggled into his chest.

"I never meant it, I never meant to," she was saying.

Giles was murmuring, "I know, I know," although he didn't.

Dawn was stoking Buffy's hair waiting for her sister to acknowledge her.

"Abbey, Abbey," Jed said urgently.

Abbey pulled away to look at him. She smiled. "It's just been so long since I've channelled that much magic."

That seemed to remind her of something. She looked around until she found Tara and Willow on the floor. She knelt on the floor beside Tara. Willow had her eyes closed and was clinging to Tara.

"All that I, everything, oh Goddess, I can feel it. Why can I feel it? Why now? What we did, why do we do it?"

Abbey gently placed her hands on either side of Willow's face and forced her to look up. Willow saw the determination and understanding in Abbey's eyes. They closed her eyes and Willow felt the older witch's touch in her mind. She followed as Abbey delved through her, finding the spells she'd done and residue of them.

"We can help, Willow," Abbey said.

"Really? You'll do that? You can do that, just the two of you?"

Willow looked between Tara and her aunt. Tara looked determined, but worried, she knew the strength and control required for that sort of cleansing spell.

"There are over 1000 employees in the West Wing. We'll find people. Or I'll just go around and order anyone who's ever thought about magic to join us."

Willow braved a smile.

Donna was beginning to feel the effects of the magic that had left her and entered the air which became Buffy, or whatever had happened. It was like being earthed for an electric current, except the magic had had to burst from her and join the magic coming from Dawn.

She wanted to say something to Toby or C.J. C.J because she must have felt something similar. And Toby because he was supposed to know about this, and he was supposed to teach her about it, too.

But they were still having their silent conversation.

"So that's why," C.J said eventually.

"Yeah," Toby said. He looked embarrassed. "And that's why you wouldn't."

C.J gave a self-deprecating little chuckle.

"Yeah."

"So we're back where we're supposed to be," Toby said.

"Deepest friend, ha?"

"C.J."

"I know, his words, not yours. Still, it makes you wonder."

"Yeah." Toby turned his attention away from the awkward conversation with C.J and back to Donna's quiet curiosity. "Donna? How do feel?"

"Like I've been wrung out."

"That's good. It means it didn't take too much out of you. It didn't leave you with anything either."

Donna nodded. Toby gave her what passed for a smile, pleased with her understanding. C.J was struck by the uncomfortable thought that she was jealous. If she'd gone back, she'd have been dead by now and she would never have ended up at the White House, raising the dead in the basement.

She looked about the room. Giles, Dawn and Buffy were crouched together on her left. Abbey, Tara and Willow were being watched over on her right. Xander and Anya were talking quietly. Marbury caught her eye and she looked away.

Tears were leaking down Spike's face.

"Hey, Spike, what's up?" Xander demanded. He didn't like the vampire. But Dawn did. And he had helped out.

"Bloody Hell," was Spike's response.

Anya was staring at him. Spike glowered at her.

"Why didn't this happen to you?"

"What?" Xander asked.

"Get back what you lost," Spike spat. "What do you think that meant to me? Bloody bollocks, you knew!"

Spike leapt to his feet and pushed Marbury against the wall.

"Argh!" he yelled, as the chip kicked in.

Marbury merely looked at him curiously.

"You bloody well knew this would happen," Spike said. He had taken a step back, but he still pointed his finger at the Watcher.

"You didn't suspect?"

"Like Hell I didn't. I thought it'd be her."

"You've lost more than that, William," Marbury said. "How did you think you were going to get her back? Or be worth something to the purpose you serve."

Marbury sounded more than a little pissed off at having to explain himself. Spike backed down.

"But how do I make up for what I've done?"

"You don't. The important thing is that you try. You must have wanted it any way," Marbury said. "There's less pain this way."

"What way?" Xander asked. "What did Spike want?"

Spike stood up straight in his leather coat. But he didn't look nearly as cocky as he had just that morning.

"My soul, you nong."


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

Buffy looked up sharply at Spike. He felt her attention and turned around.

"Hey. How are you doing there?" he asked.

"It's okay. What about you?"

"Overcome by guilt and remorse. But I won't be brooding over it."

Buffy tried to smile. Spike patted her shoulder.

"You take a bit to get use to it."

Buffy grabbed onto him to pull herself to standing. Giles and Dawn stood behind her. Buffy looked up at Spike, curiously. He was smiling at her in a gentle it's-nice-to-be-here kind of way. Something was very strange in the way they were standing, she lent into him, let him hold her up. She realised what it was.

"I don't want to kill you," she said to him.

Spike's face clouded over.

"You felt that. All the time I've patrolled with you. When you brought Dawn to my crypt."

He looked horrified, and faintly sick. He felt it, too. To fight that kind of instinct, to give him any chance at all… And he had tried to convince her by tying her up and staking Dru.

"It's okay," Buffy said quickly, "Do you know who many times I've wanted to kill Dawn?"

Spike accepted that.

"Hey," Dawn said.

Buffy turned so she could face her sister directly. Dawn looked good. She looked shocked, guilty, exuberant, and guilty. But she had grown a little in the two weeks? since the final fight with Glory. Buffy had left her to look after herself.

"Hi," she said.

Dawn grinned.

"Are you going to be the prefect sister now, and keep your room tidy and do the dishes and go to school and get good marks in everything? Except maybe history."

"No," Dawn said. She knew that promising anything you couldn't keep was a bad, bad, bad idea. She was worried, though, by the question.

"Good!" Buffy said, with a sharp nod.

Dawn flung her arms around her sister and Buffy hugged her back.

"I missed you so much," Dawn said. "I couldn't begin to think of what I was going to do."

"I knew you were safe," Buffy said. She pulled back to look Dawn in the eye. "It was nice there, I knew that you were safe. Promise you'll be safe. I want to see you grow you up, now that I can."

Dawn nodded.

Giles was still hovering over her. His expression was a quieter version of Dawn's, a mixture of joy and concern, with a little of the determined duty-doer she'd seen when he had said he would kill Dawn. Buffy remembered what the other guy had said. She was going to need his strength for some time.

"I'll be okay," she said with professional candour. "Just give me a few weeks."

Giles smiled slowly.

Buffy looked around the room with a much brighter expression than she had the first time. Willow and Tara were crouched on the floor with Abbey. Abbey's husband was looking at the three of them as if he was struggling with something. She hadn't told him about the magic thing, then.

He looked familiar in an impersonal way, like he was famous. Buffy felt suddenly nervous. She pushed it back to kneel beside Willow.

"Hey," she said.

"Oh, Goddess, Buffy," Willow managed to say. She shook her head and pulled away.

Buffy shuffled over and put her arms around her friend. She wasn't going to be able to comfort Willow. And she wasn't going to be able to forget the pain she felt. But most of her anger was directed at Marbury, and she'd need her Willow back.

"I'm back, Will. It's okay."

Willow shook her head. "We shouldn't have tried. We should have let you rest."

"I would have been really pissed if I'd been hell and you hadn't tried to get me out," Buffy said. She knew that that much was true.

"You got out last time."

"I knew where the exit was last time! Please, Will, this is hardly a nice place if you're not happy."

Willow looked up at Buffy. She was sad, and grieving, and angry. But she was absolutely determined. Willow nodded weakly.

"Good, you're going to stand up now?"

Willow stood up and leant on Tara. Abbey patted her back gently. Buffy remembered that reassuring smile from the late night news.

"It a pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Buffy said with a polite nod to Abbey.

Abbey smiled in return. "I'm glad I had the opportunity," she said.

"Thank you, sir," Buffy said to the President. He nodded. He was still unsure about her. And she hadn't use the pleasantry with the deference he had become accustomed to.

The rest of the gathered company was watching her now. Buffy smiled and gave a little curtsey. Marbury bowed in return.

"I want to see them fight, now," Buffy told him, pointing to C.J and Donna.

Giles didn't miss that Buffy had asked Marbury. Everyone else turned to the two women standing against the wall. C.J turned to Donna and shrugged. Donna nodded.

"Sounds like fun."

C.J chuckled lightly. It was fun, she knew that. She took of her jacket and her shoes and sat down to take of her socks. Donna did the same, and they were soon standing in the middle of a circle facing each other off.

"You're not going to go easy, this time, are you?" Donna asked.

"Not a chance," C.J said.

She swung a blow at Donna, who ducked out of the way and threw her own punch, which landed wide. There were a few more passes before they had gotten into the fight. Buffy was carefully watching the moves they used, as were the three Watchers.

C.J landed the first blow, to Donna's shoulder. Donna was forced back a step, but she blocked C.J's next swing with that arm.

"Come on, you weren't going to go easy."

"I didn't," C.J said. She blocked Donna's next punch.

"You can hit harder than that, Donna."

"No, I can't," Donna said.

"Of course," Marbury said, suddenly.

Donna and C.J stopped to glare at him.

"That's what it meant. Donna's Slayer powers were supposed to be returned to Buffy, who lost them when she died. But because we had two Slayers, the spell took some from each of you."

"Will we get it back?" Donna demanded.

"Only if you do," Marbury said.

C.J waved him off and turned back to Donna.

"We should still be evenly matched. Which means I'll win, because I've got training."

"I've got youth and imagination," Donna said, facing C.J again.

Xander leant forward to Buffy.

"How inappropriate would it be to chant 'fight, fight'?" he asked.

Buffy suppressed a grin.

"Very," she said.

C.J and Donna set up an easy, early, blow/block rhythm. Donna landed the first punch after dodging one of C.J's. C.J responded with a swift sideways kick which left Donna on the floor.

Donna rolled in time to grab one of C.J's legs and tried to pull her over. From then the fight got a little out of hand. Neither C.J nor Donna was now really strong enough to throw the other woman. But both wanted to test the new edge to their fighting ability.

Donna had more trouble keep her hair of her face. They agreed on a time out to tie their hair back and continued at a much more measured pace. C.J caught Donna's foot from one kick and Donna did a back flip off the momentum. C.J spun away from one of Donna's blows and aimed a flying kick at her middle.

Donna ended up on the floor again. Before C.J could pin her they were interrupted by voices from outside the door.

"Leo, they're a college tour, the President could have met them anywhere else in building," Josh said, his exasperation evident.

"You've checked everywhere else?" Leo asked. "She's checked everywhere else," he told Josh, "And really, I'm sick of listening to you."

"Leo!"

"Just open the door!"


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

Josh pushed the door open and look at what was supposed to be an empty room. Donna and C.J were standing the middle of a circle of the people from Sunnydale, another young woman, Toby, the First Lady, the President and the crazy Englishman. They looked like they had been fighting.

Leo pushed past him with a superior look.

The first person to speak was Abbey.

"Leo, I said I would tell you if I could!"

"I was looking for C.J," Leo said.

"What do you need, Leo?" C.J asked, ignoring the fact that she wasn't wearing her shoes.

"I wanted to know what the Press were doing about Owen's death and if you had any more information that I might be able to pass on to Caroline."

"We'll find out what happened, Leo. But I want to keep it out of the press as long as possible. I don't think the details have made it out, I'd like to keep it that way."

Leo nodded and turned to Toby.

"You'll have to meet with her soon, Toby. She's needs input on the final draft."

Toby glowered at Leo and mumbled a response, but Leo knew he would do it. He stepped back and looked around the strange group of people.

"Have you and C.J been fighting?" Josh asked his assistant.

"She won," Donna said bitterly.

Josh looked at C.J. She'd neatened her hair and put her jacket back on. But there was dust on her pants.

"Why?" he asked.

"The easiest way to train," Donna explained. "And Buffy wanted us to."

Josh turned to the young woman he didn't recognise.

"You're Buffy?"

"Yes."

"And where did you come from?"

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked.

"You weren't with the others in the Roosevelt Room before," Josh said.

The Scooby Gang, and those who had done the spell shared a couple or anxious glances. C.J nodded to Donna, who looked questioningly at Toby. Toby looked to Giles, whose expression said quiet clearly that it was Buffy's fault.

"Mr President, they're your staff, how much can we tell them?"

"How much do you want them to know, Ms Summers?"

"What spell did you do?" Margaret asked.

She peered around Leo to examine the residue of the spell that had been performed. Leo turned sharply to look at her and almost fell of the step he was on.

"Call of Need," Abbey said.

Margaret nodded.

"Margaret?" Leo demanded.

"Sorry," Margaret said, taking a step back.

Leo just looked at her, trying to work out how much of what she had said was supposed to make sense. Abbey had known what she was talking about.

"Abbey?" he asked.

"I told you that you wouldn't want to know," Abbey said.

"No, you didn't. And you were wrong. So all these people…?"

"Yeah, they were all involved."

"Even Toby? And Donna?" He wasn't prepared to comment on anything C.J might be able to do.

"I didn't do much," Toby said. "It's not really my thing."

"No," Leo said slowly.

The President was watching him with something akin to anger. Josh was merely confused.

"'And Donna what?'" he asked.

"We did a spell, Josh," Donna said. "Mrs Bartlet, and Tara and Willow are witches."

She pointed Tara and Willow, but Josh didn't look at them.

"So this is a real conversation?" Josh asked.

"Spike's a vampire," the dark haired kid at the back said.

"This conversations has vampires in it," Josh said. He was beginning to sound panicky.

Xander was grinning. Donna patted Josh gently on the arm.

"It's okay," she said. "C.J and I can kill them. So can Buffy, she's the real Slayer."

"Slayer?" Leo asked.

Buffy held out her hand. "Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer."

He came down the stairs, past Josh to meet her.

"Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff," Leo said.

"You knew," the President hissed in his ear.

Leo looked at his friend. "It was hardly my place to say anything, Jed."

"Jed, I'm sorry," Abbey said, tugging on his arm. "We never discussed it. They told me I was a demon, I had to run, Leo was the only person I could think of running to."

"You never told me," the President said. Although he had no idea what he could have said if she had.

Abbey shrugged. "You would have said 'I want you to stop' and I would have described to you all the great things I could do if I used my power."

Jed blinked. He turned to look at Abbey carefully. He couldn't find anything to say. She seemed to understand.

Josh was still staring at Donna. C.J and Buffy were now sanding either side of her. Leo was watching the four of them, waiting for Josh to think something and trying not to listen to the first couple's conversation.

"Mr Lyman?" the redhead interrupted him. "It might be better if you sit down."

Josh lowed himself to the bottom step. It was nicer down here, he thought.

"C.J?" She was the one least likely to be playing with him. Or at least, she'd be the easiest to read. He didn't know the other people there at all.

"Listen very carefully while we explain this, Joshua," C.J said.

He really didn't think that she was having him on. And it seemed the President, Mrs Bartlet and Leo knew what was going on, too.

Tara left the others to explain what was what to the White House deputy Chief of Staff. She remembered what the red head woman had said as she came in. She was at the top of the stairs, surveying the room with a disinterested air.

"Margaret?"

The woman blinked and looked at her.

"My name is Tara. You could see the residue of the spell?"

Margaret nodded brightly. Then she looked almost comically concerned.

"The Call to Need isn't a good spell. Jeanette was telling me about these people who had wanted to do it in Chicago. But they couldn't go through with it."

Tara ignored the information she didn't need.

"Can you see any residue in Willow?" she asked, pointing out her girlfriend.

Margaret narrowed her eyes as she looked. She nodded slowly.

"It's not as bad as Jeanette was saying about the guy in Chicago. But she needs help."

Tara nodded fervently.


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

The President and Mrs Bartlet had put their serious discussion on hold. Anya had somehow engaged the President in conversation. No doubt about some element of the economy she didn't like. He seemed to be enjoying himself, although Xander wasn't.

"Abbey," Tara called across the room.

She felt Leo, Josh and Margaret's shocked and curious glances.

"Margaret, she could see the, ah, spell, the residue on Willow?"

Abbey brightened and came over to them, holding her hand out to Margaret.

"Abigail Bartlet, Wit A Five," she said.

"Margaret Kneale Wit C Three," Margaret said.

"And you know about Cleansing Spells?"

"No, ma'am, but my friend, Jeanette, who works in the President's Council of Physical Fitness knows all about them."

"Okay, email her and ask her about them. And then send out an emergency call to all White House Staff, we'll meet in the Mural Room, can you do that?"

Margaret nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Okay, if you can do that now. We need to do this as soon as possible."

Margaret nodded again and left with a fervent 'thank you ma'am.'

"What does that mean?" Tara asked, "The Wit A Three?"

Abbey frowned. If Tara had hidden herself well enough to miss out on a real coven at this stage in her learning, things were going to be difficult for her. Still, the hellmouth was like that. If only she'd tried harder to find her.

"It's your level," she explained. "When you turn eighteen the elders of your coven test you and rate your level. It's not an accurate guide of your power, because you can train more after that. But it's the comparative score for something."

Tara frowned with an almost identical expression. Abbey hugged her lightly.

"We'll work it out. But it's not urgent."

Abbey and Tara looked around the room together, working out what had to be done next.

Xander was trying to be interested in Anya and the President's conversation. Josh looked like he was beginning to accept the situation. He was beginning to look slightly angry, instead of shocked.

Toby, Marbury and Giles had finished the post mortem on the spell and were now discussing something very intently with Leo. It looked like they were trying explain who it was that Marbury was in charge; Leo was distressed.

"Josh, C.J, Toby," Abbey ordered. "You have to go back to work. You should also tell Sam what you know, he won't like being left out again.

"Leo you should go back to work, too, there's not much you can do here. Same for you, Jed, we'll have our discussion this evening.

"Donna, if could take Xander, Dawn, Spike, Buffy and Mr Giles to the Mess and see that they're comfortable?

"Anya, do you have any magically abilities at all?"

"I turned my ex-boyfriend into a troll," Anya said brightly.

"Good. You can come with Tara, Willow and I. We'll be in the Mural Room for the next few hours at least. Can everyone manage that?"

Abbey finished succinctly. No one could think of any argument so they simply obeyed.

"Ma'am?" Marbury said.

"My lord?"

"By what authority?"

"This is my house. You should probably give Buffy her visitor's pass. After that you're free."

Marbury blinked once before complying.

"I'll come by later, Gerald," he said as he left.

Willow hugged Buffy before she left, following her Watcher and not really caring about where they were going. She felt as though she were in a haze, like she was trying to remember something, but couldn't even think of why.

"Apples and peanut butter?" Donna asked, ushering her 'charges' into the mess.

There were a few people still there at that time in the afternoon. The took up one side of the mess, spreading out a little around the small tables. Dawn refused to move more than a few feet from Buffy, but Giles was willing to sit back a bit and watch. Spike did the same.

"I've never had that," Xander said.

"You've never had apples and peanut butter?" Donna sounded shocked. "Sam and Josh have lived off them for days at a time."

Donna hurried off to find the food. Buffy smiled at the fondness in Donna's voice. She hadn't met Sam, but Josh had seemed a little dopey. It had been a little fun watching him struggle with the knowledge they had had to convince him of. He obvious liked Donna, Dawn had seen it too.

Donna came pack with several apples, two knives and a jar of peanut butter. She chopped one apple up, passing the second knife to Xander.

"Ah, ah, ah," she cried, when Xander put the knife into the jar. "The knife is for the apples, you dip them into the peanut butter."

Spike chuckled at her frantic expression. He leaned forwards gracefully and snatched the piece of apple out of Donna's hand and the jar out of Xander's. He settled back with them.

"This is good," Spike said.

Buffy watched him with raised eyebrows.

"I thought vampires drank blood," Donna said. Her hands still felt cramped, but she didn't want to kill him any more.

"Only the boring, brooding types," Spike said.

He threw the jar to Buffy.

"You've go to try this, luv, does wonders."

Buffy dubiously scooped some peanut butter out with her piece of apple and nibbled at it.

"What are you doing at school, Dawn?" Donna asked politely.

"Well, we're on vacation at the moment, so yay. I didn't go so much the end of last year. First I accidentally found out that I didn't exist, so I thought, why bother. After mom died I didn't want to go. And then Glory was after me, and I didn't get a chance to. But I liked it mostly, even math."

Donna smiled. "I liked college. But my boyfriend was a complete, some word you probably shouldn't hear …"

"Asshole," Xander offered.

"Wanker," Spike said.

"I like, what is it? Pillock," Buffy said.

"Jackass," Dawn said, joining in.

"Berk," Giles said with finality; he liked Donna. Spike coughed.

"Yeah," Donna said. "Josh only ever said Dr Freeloader. I dumped him and moved to the campaign and assigned myself to Josh's office."

"Cause he was cute?" Dawn asked.

Donna giggle. "Because his office was empty."

Donna was quiet for a moment as she remembered the startled look on Josh's face. And then his expression when she had come back. She'd been working for him non-stop for over three years now.

"You can still do it," Buffy slowly. "I mean, you can still do your job and everything. Do a sweep past a cemetery on your way home. And C.J'll do it too. I'll have most of the big stuff covered, once I get back to work."

She sounded tired. Dawn put her hand on her arm comfortingly. Xander looked anxious. He'd have like one of the girls there to help him out.

"Toby and Giles mentioned something about a Faith?"

"Ha!" Buffy's laugh was bitter. "She's in prison doing time for murder, and possibly torture."

"I don't think Wesley pressed charges," Giles said quietly.

"Good man," Buffy said sarcastically.

"You have to give her points for turning herself in," Giles said.

"How many do I get to take off for trying to set me up?" Buffy asked.

They both sighed.

"Happier things," Xander said. "We can speak of happier things. Spike hasn't turned all broody!"

"Too bloody right, I haven't," Spike said. "I'm not some bleeding ponce. Also, most of it was what I had to do. Never took the pleasure in it Angelus did. Except me mum," he added softly. He bit into his apple mournfully.

Xander really, really hoped that Spike didn't ever feel the need to dwell on what he had done. The danger was not him brooding, it was him drinking, and that was always so pretty.


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven

Willow shuffled towards Tara and took her hand. Abbey smiled at her gently.

"Margaret is going to email everybody, anyone with any magical knowledge will meet us in the Mural Room, it will probably take an hour to gather enough people. Do you still want to go through with it?"

Willow nodded once, determined.

"What are we doing?" Anya asked.

"A cleansing spell for Willow," Tara said abruptly. She didn't want any of Anya's usual comments about things like that.

"They are really nice," Anya said enthusiastically.

Willow smiled properly and warmly for the first time since Buffy died. There was no way Anya would say that for her benefit.

Abbey ushered them out of the room, with a last nod to Marbury. She led them briskly to the Mural Room. Her agents followed the three Scoobies in the strange procession.

Abbey had chosen the Mural Room for both its relative isolation and its colour scheme. She quietly instructed the girls to push all the furniture as close to the walls as possible. It left them a reasonably clear space in the middle of the room. They sat in a loose circle, Willow leaning against Tara.

"You're a demon?" Abbey asked Anya politely. She remembered Anya's reaction to the demon comment.

"Was," Anya said. "Vengeance demon for the last 1000 years or so. It was fun. But then I lost my power centre, which was a total blow, I was stuck as human, and in High School. And then it turned out that the Mayor was going to eat the Graduating Class."

Anya rolled her eyes eloquently.

Margaret knocked sharply before opening the door and leading three other women into the room. Abbey rose gracefully to her feet and offered her hand to the woman she didn't recognise.

"Jeanette? I'm Abigail Bartlet."

"Ma'am," Jeanette said, nervously.

"Hi, Carol, Bonnie."

The other assistants smiled in greeting.

"We don't have time for full formal introductions, please, have a seat."

Margaret, Jeanette, Carol and Bonnie joined the circle. Abbey stayed by the door to welcome Cassie, Lauren, Yi, Julie and Maria as they arrived. With twelve members of the circle to surround Willow they would be well placed to complete the spell successfully. She ordered her agents not to let anyone else in.

"You'll need to tell them that the circle is full," she said.

They nodded.

Jeanette was too nervous to speak much in front of the First Lady. She described the process in a murmur as Margaret arranged the circle.

Abbey and Tara, as those closest and strongest, formed a circle with Willow. Margaret, Carol, Bonnie and Julie who knew Abbey best formed the next circle. Jeanette would control the outer circle of six, including Anya, the link back to Willow.

The aim was to channel Willow's power through the circles and so 'clean' it. The effects, and the residue of all the spells she had done would be removed. But, as an untrained and untested witch, no one knew the extent of Willow's power. They all could end up overloaded. It would be up to Tara and Abbey to make sure that didn't happen. And up to Anya to make sure they didn't burn Willow out giving her back her magic.

Quietly Jeanette began the chanting.

"Earth Goddess, mother of all,

"In supplication, hear our call,

"We hold one for you to cleanse,

"To your will we trust she bends."

Each member of the circle joined in with their own supplications. Yi, Maria and Anya chanted in their native languages. As the rhythms diverged the sounds of the individual words began to merge into gutturals, and then into power. The second circle began to chant the sacred sounds. Tara drew on Willow's magic, and Abbey passed it from Willow to the second circle.

Sam was too absorbed in his writing to notice Josh's presence in his doorway. He reacted instantly when Toby coughed.

"Hey, you're back. Did you find Donna?"

"Yeah, she's doing some thing Mrs Bartlet got her on to. Ah…" Josh said.

"Sam, my office," Toby demanded.

Sam stood up automatically. He gave C.J a puzzled glance as he passed her, following Toby. She merely gestured for him to follow his boss and fell behind Josh.

Toby's office could hold them all in close comfort. Toby and C.J took the couch leaving Josh on the desk, swinging his legs, and Sam on Toby's chair by the door. Sam looked at the three of them expectantly. He wasn't sure what had happened between C.J and Toby, but it was beginning to worry him. And they looked nervous.

"Something happened to Donna the week before last," Toby said.

Sam looked quickly at Josh. Josh nodded at him to listen to Toby.

"It's nothing life threatening," he assured.

C.J coughed deliberately. Toby gave her dark look.

"Like we haven't been out, Toby. Every other night?"

"Like we didn't just resurrect the real Slayer," Toby countered.

"Where have you been, C.J? Sam asked.

"Cemeteries," C.J said. "Also, I've been trawling through D.C police reports for all sorts of unexplained deaths. I have a pin board now."

"Pins of what?" Sam asked.

"Where the unexplained deaths are. There were three when Donna was Called two weeks ago. Well, actually one after that. There have been two since then"

"What happened with Donna?"

"She was Called as the Vampire Slayer," Josh said.

He frowned. Sam laughed. Toby took C.J's hand.

"We're serious," Toby said.

His expression, and the way he was sitting with C.J just made Sam laugh more.

"But I don't know what that means," Sam said.

"It means she has been given extra strength, quick reflexes, and fast healing so that she can kill vampires," said C.J.

Josh nodded, taking it in for the fourth time. Sam narrowed his eyes at C.J. He noticed the strange lilt in C.J's voice.

"It happened to me when I was fifteen," C.J said.

"How?"

"No one know," C.J said. "When one Slayer dies the next one is Called."

"Hang on," Sam said. He had the uncomfortable, if familiar feeling of drowning in words. "When one Slayer dies, the next on gets the strength?"

"Yes," Toby said.

"But there are three Slayers?"

"Four."

"Okay, I missed that one."

Toby took over the Slayer lecture. He was sure that if Josh and C.J had kept out of it Sam wouldn't have been so confused. He explained as straightforwardly as possible. C.J had been Called at fifteenth. She'd been drowned six months later, soon after she had turned sixteen. The next Slayer had been Called, despite the fact that C.J had been revived. Four years ago the active Slayer had drowned, been revived, and the next Slayer had been Called. But, unlike C.J, Buffy had continued fighting. The second Slayer was killed and Faith was Called. Buffy had died for a second time. Then her Slayer powers had been transferred to Donna so Buffy could be resurrected. The process should have drained Donna of the Slayer powers, but she and C.J had both given half.

Sam nodded his understanding. He nodded again. He gave up and just stared at Toby.

Toby rolled his eyes.

"One girl in all the world, the Chosen One, is given the strength to fight the demons and vampires, prevent the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. She is the Slayer," C.J recited.

"Slayer," Sam repeated.

"Yes."

"Vampires and Demons?"

"Yes."

"And you and Donna are super strong now?"

"Yes."

"I'll try not to piss you off."

Abbey blinked as she felt the magic link to Tara peter out. Anya had her eyes closed and looked mildly put out. But Willow looked magnificent. Her hair had taken on a golden sheen and her eyes were bright and clear. Abbey fed the last of the magic into Julie and watched as it made its way around the circle to Margaret and out to Jeanette. Anya shivered as she passed the last of the magic back to Willow.

Willow fell forward, breathing heavily. It was a moment before she could speak.

"Thank you," she murmured.

Abbey smiled. "You needed it, Willow," she said, hoping the young woman knew how close she had come to dependency.

"That, too," Willow said. "But just, the world seems so much nicer now. Not all joyful, I know, but that's just the people part. But the natural part, it's … perfect. And way too big for anyone to take on."

Abbey chuckled. Tara beamed. The others looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Thank you, everyone," Abbey addressed them. "It means a lot to us that you come and help. I don't know if some of you have contact with the local covens, but we can probably arrange to meet once a month. I'll have Julie send out messages. You should probably go back to work now, before people start to ask too many questions. If they do ask, you can send them to me."

The assistants all rose and left with murmured 'thank you ma'ams'. They broke up into their own groups as they walk away, discussing the spell. Anya moved closer the group, but she didn't say anything. They sat quietly for a moment before Anya gave up silence for action.

"We've got a demon to catch, don't we?"

"We'd better talk to the others."


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight

The staffers that were still in building by late Sunday afternoon were sent home. Sam, Toby, Josh and C.J were still in Toby's office when Leo did the rounds.

"Go, now, please," he said.

Josh was the only one to stand up.

"I'm going down to the mess," he announced.

Leo let him pass, but continued to glare at the others.

"I want you here early tomorrow, I suggest you take this opportunity to go home. Sam, you've got a lot to process, if you want to talk anyone call Abbey."

"You know?" Sam asked.

"I've known Abbey since we were about twelve," Leo said.

Sam nodded. He wandered out of the office to collect his things from his own. Leo thought better of trying to order C.J and Toby to do anything. He followed Sam out off the building.

Abbey, Anya, Tara and Willow were also in the mess by the time Josh arrived.

"Hi," he greeted the group.

Donna looked up at him. "Do you need something?" she asked.

"Leo sent me home," he explained. "What's happening here?"

"We're trying to think of ways to find out where the demon is so Buffy and Donna can kill it," Xander said.

Josh sat down. He took a piece of apple from the pile and dipped in the nearest peanut butter jar.

"I really have no idea," he said after a moment's pondering.

"There's the map spell," Willow suggested.

"I think we'd need something more specific," Abbey said. "There are probably several demons, or half demons, in the White House let alone D.C."

"C.J said she had a pin board," Josh said. "But it only has five pins in it."

"Could we adjust the spell to find everyone, or every demon that has been to all sites?" Dawn said.

Willow frowned. She'd found the original spell, but she couldn't remember the theory behind it.

"I've never encountered any past reference spells like that," Abbey said.

"But everything leaves a trace," Tara said.

"Do you have any books, ma'am?" Donna asked.

"No," Abbey said sadly. "And what is it you're eating?"

"Apples and peanut butter," Josh said. He looked at her strangely. How had she been here so long and not known that?

"Is it good?"

"Not as good as chocolate and peanut butter," Buffy said, reaching for another piece of apple.

"I'll pass then."

They sat. No really had much energy left at the end of the day to say much. Donna and Buffy were anxious to get out and beat something up, but they still didn't have any idea of how to find the creature they wanted to pulverize. Each person slowly sank into their own thoughts, rising occasionally for another piece of apple.

When Josh didn't come back, C.J and Toby decided that they should probably head down to the mess after him. The room was wake-still when they entered. C.J couldn't decide if it was ironic, or to be expected given the events of the day.

"Toby, how do we find this demon?" Abbey asked, before they could find a seat.

"I've got a pin board," C.J said.

"I told them already," Josh said.

"We go to the most recent site and pick up the magic trace trail," Toby said. "It's been killing them by magic, so it should be fairly strong."

"She was at the Potomac," C.J said. "I can lead the way. Ma'am, you probably shouldn't come."

Abbey shook her head in agreement. To the extent that they ever showed expression, her agents looked relieved.

Slowly the group stood up and gathered together ready to leave.

"I'll be staying here then," Spike said, slouching back in his chair. "It'll give me time to think things over," he said to himself.

No one heard, but Abbey understood.

"You can talk to me," she said.

With varied glances the others agreed and began to leave the Mess. They met Sam and Leo in the hallway.

"Where are you going?" Leo asked just as Sam asked, "Who are you?"

"We're the Scooby gang," Xander said. "And we're off to kill a demon."

"Do you want to come?" Anya offered.

Leo looked slightly taken aback by the offer. Sam looked confused.

"Shouldn't Marbury be here?" Leo asked the group. He wasn't sure who he should be addressing.

"Why?" Sam asked, studying the new people.

"He's in charge," Leo said. His uncertainty was evident.

"Really?" Sam asked.

He seemed excited. Leo grimaced.

"He is, but he's also the Lord Watcher, which means he's not actually part of this process," Toby said. "I'm in charge of Donna and C.J. Giles is in charge of the others."

"Tara and Willow are in charge of themselves," Giles said.

Toby nodded succinctly, accepting the correction, and not really caring. He looked at Leo and Sam carefully, judging their ability to deal with what they were about to do.

"Are you going to come?" he asked.

Sam nodded eagerly. He wasn't going to let Josh have all the fun. Leo more considered, but he, too, agreed to join them.

"I need to see it," he said slowly.

"Okay, then," Toby said. "Leave anything you don't want to carry with Abbey and Spike in the mess. We're headed to the Potomac and then we'll be following a magic trail, there may be a long walk."

"You don't like the outdoors," Sam reminded him.

"Demons are worse," Toby said.


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine

As willing as Abbey was to mind Leo's briefcase, and as intrigued as she was by what had happened to Spike, she wasn't happy. Leo stalked back out of the mess and followed Josh, who was following Donna, out of the building.

There was a hold up at the entrance desk when Buffy realised that Dawn thought she was going to come with them.

"I've was captured by a Hell goddess. And before that Harmony's gang was going to eat me. This is no way going to be as bad as either of those, and there are three Slayers here. Besides, you wouldn't need to look after me if I could look after myself."

"You don't have the strength," Buffy said. "And you're really too young."

"I'm almost as old as you are when you started. And I also don't have the training."

"She won't be fighting," Giles said. "But I feel that she should come."

Dawn looked pleased with herself.

"She just wants to make sure that you're safe," he added quietly.

Buffy eventually gave in silently. They continued on their way out.

C.J was leading the way. The marines at the desk didn't ask her how her day had been as she left. It was not their job to check the IDs of people leaving the building, but they were curious about the group following the Press Secretary.

Occasionally people felt that they should try to talk the person they were walking next to, but most attempts to talk fell flat. Leo, Josh and Sam felt out of place. The Scoobies didn't feel that their usual banter had a place in the solemn procession formed by the White House staffers.

C.J lead them quickly to a spot along the Potomac. It was completely non-descript. A woman had been found dead there. But the police tape had already gone. C.J pointed out the spot.

Tara and Willow shared a quick glance before Tara sat down on the pavement. She crossed her legs, formed the mudra and closed her eyes. Everyone else stood around trying to pretend that nothing was going on.

Tara's invocation sounded loud. No one could really think of what to say.

"Is it a good day for it?" Josh asked.

"I've never been out during the day," Donna said.

C.J looked around. Clouds were obscuring the sun, but the rest of the sky was clear. She nodded.

"I think it is. It's easy to see, at least," she said.

"But difficult to hide," Buffy said.

"What would you need hide from?" Sam asked. "You've got superpowers."

"I am as strong as a vampire," Buffy said. "Okay, I little bit stronger than Angel. But I had to fight a Hell goddess a couple of weeks ago."

There was a moment where the only sound was Tara whispered chanting.

"Has it really only been that long?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah," Xander said.

"So nothing's too bad? Who's been looking after Dawn? What did you tell dad?"

"What happened?" Sam whispered to C.J.

She shook her head.

"Everything's fine," Willow said. "Tara and I moved into your mom's room so we could look after Dawn. But no one could contact your dad."

"Good," Buffy said.

Dawn risked a grin. Buffy ran her fingers through her sister's hair, but said nothing. Strangely she wished for Spike's presence. He wouldn't have worried about her. Or maybe he would have, soul and all.

They were suddenly surrounded by a fine purple mist. Tara stood up slowly.

"We can follow the mist. It's the path the demon took after it left here. But it was here a few days ago, it could have gone anywhere."

C.J lead the march through the ankle high mist. She wanted this over with so she go back to pretending that vampires existed in bad horror films. The strange gleam in Toby's eyes said that that wasn't going to happen.

He made his way over to Buffy.

"You said Angel."

"Yes."

"Have you heard of the vampire Angelus, the Scourge of Europe?" he asked carefully.

"Angel when he lost his soul," Buffy said shortly. "He was cursed with a soul by gypsies and now runs a detective agency in LA."

Toby nodded. Despite his reputation as something of an uncaring bastard, he was aware of other people feelings. He was also aware of the fact that this young woman was close to breaking point, and strong, even for a slayer.

The purple mist lead through the streets of D.C to an apartment block. Toby's heart sank when he saw it. C.J rang the doorbell and the concierge opened the door for them. He let them in when C.J flashed her White House ID badge.

"Can he see the mist?" C.J asked. It continued across the lobby to the stairs.

"Possibly not," Tara said. "But that might be because he doesn't want to."

C.J nodded, and walked over to the stairs.

The group followed her eventually. Leo was staring around the building and at the purple mist. He knew, intellectually that magic had to exist. There had been no other explanation for Abbey's running away and that comments he had occasionally gotten from his mother. But to see it in effect was something he was not well prepared for.

Sam and Josh had given up trying to work it out and were merely following.

Donna and Buffy had followed C.J. They were all eager to beat the thing and get it over with. They had to wait for the others at the bottom of the stairs.

Giles and Toby made there last. They were dreading what they would find if the demon had simply stopped by here on its way somewhere else.

The door to apartment 403 was locked. No one answered when Anya knocked. Donna rapped as hard as she could on the door, the sound echoed through the apartment, but no one came running.

"What lesson are we on?" C.J asked her.

"Ah, five, I think," Donna said, momentarily confused.

"Lesson six, how to open a door," C.J said.

Sam stared at them. Leo coughed. Toby patted him on the back.

"You can't just turn the handle, because if the lock is stronger than the handle, you'll simply break the lock and we won't get in."

Donna nodded. She reached out and took the handle.

"Now, stand next to the door, over the handle."

Donna followed C.J's instructions. There was a loud ' _snack_ ' sound and the door swung open.

They sent Anya through the door first, because she was least recognisable, and most able to lie. She was confronted by a man, elegantly dressed, sitting on a leather sofa, reading the Washington Post.

"Oh, excuse me, sir," she exclaimed. "You didn't answer our knocking, we thought that no one was home. We need to examine the windows in these apartments for their integrity."

Toby stepped up beside her.

"iubeo te ipse aperire," he said. He took a pinch of power from his pocket and threw in into the room.

Anya sneezed. The man on the sofa blinked.

With a howl, he shrunk and expanded into a pale yellow shape that looked vaguely like a monkey.

It snarled at Toby and Anya, who quickly fled the room. Buffy stepped in, flanked by Donna and C.J.

The demon laid its head back and bared its teeth before it took a giant leap over the coffee table towards them.


	30. Chapter Thirty

Donna and C.J both stepped sideways out of the path of the flying thing. Buffy took enough of a step back to kick it in the chest. The demon fell onto the floor, Buffy moved too quickly to see and had it pinned to the floor. It tried to struggle, but Donna came and pinned its legs as well.

"Ah, how do we killed it?" Buffy said.

"You have to cut off its head," Toby said.

"Does anyone have anything to do any cutting with?" Buffy asked.

C.J took one of her knives out of her jacket and handed it over. Buffy held the blade gently by the hilt and tip and pushed it through the demon's neck.

The head came off cleanly. The body dissolved into powder. Donna and Buffy hit the floor with a faint thud.

"Well, that was anti-climactic," Xander said, from the back of the crowd.

"Nice moves, Buffy," Willow added.

Buffy stood up and dusted herself off. She held a hand out for Donna to do the same.

"I feel better," she said.

"Is it too soon before dinner for an ice-cream?" Dawn asked.

Buffy pretended to consider that.

"No," she decided. "Is there somewhere good near by?" she asked.

C.J nodded. "Down the road," she said.

"Oh, that place is good," Donna added.

Buffy gave C.J back the knife. C.J dusted it on her trousers before hiding it back in her jacket. Together the three Slayers walked through the crowd and back to the stairs.

The Scoobies followed, leaving Toby, Josh, Sam and Leo to stare at the empty apartment.

"Aren't the police going to ask questions?" Sam asked.

"Probably," Toby said. "But they won't get far."

"But we were here, they're going to want to ask us questions," Sam said.

"No, we went to check up on someone who lives on the third floor. They weren't home, we left. Either that, or we were never here," he said. "I'm sure Tara or Willow can manage an indifference spell unaided."

"What will that do?" Josh asked.

He was as concerned as Sam about the possibility of police involvement. He just couldn't process it as easily. Donna hadn't looked at all strained while holding the demon down. She also hadn't even looked surprised when it disappeared.

"Just that the concierge won't be able to remember who we were, what we looked like, how many of us were here," Toby explained. "It's a little like a forgetting spell, but not as intrusive."

"Donna's prints are on the doorknob," Sam said.

Toby took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped the doorknob and the edge where Donna had pushed the door open.

"No, they aren't," he said. "We're going to miss the ice-cream."

He turned to leave. Josh and Sam came with him. Josh took Leo's arm to lead him away.

Leo wasn't doing very well. It was a strange thing to be disappointed to discover that you had been proved right. There were, of course, things you hoped weren't true. But he'd discovered this on his own, and kept Abbey's secrets for forty years. She had been right to tell him that there were things he didn't want to know.

He was dreading the meeting with Marbury. He knew that he was going to have to deal with the army's involvement. There was no way somebody didn't have someone working on something.

The people at the ice-cream bar were having a great time. Buffy was doing well under Sam's wrapped attention, telling him about the things she had fought. Her immediate reaction to hearing that she'd fought well was, 'that was nothing compared to…'

Donna, Josh and Xander came back from the counter with everyone's little cup and spoon. Buffy smiled at Xander as he handed hers over.

"You're just the bestest, Xander," Dawn cooed at him. He blushed.

The looked Anya gave him was almost indecent. Leo ignored them. He was more interested in the hovering Josh was currently engaged in. He was standing very close to Donna and seemed to be quizzing her on what she had done, and how safe it was. Leo stepped up to C.J and nudged her.

He nodded his head over to Josh and Donna.

"Look at them," he said.

"The private lives of White House staffers are private. The White House refuses to comment, except to say that we have the upmost confidence in the integrity and professionalism of out staff while they are in this building. What they do outside of that, is their own business."

"So we won't get in trouble?" he asked.

"No," C.J said.

"Good," Leo said. "I'd hate for them to loose each other."

"They have to get past Josh's own ineptitude, first," C.J said.

Leo chuckled fondly.

Donna wasn't nearly as pleased with Josh's attentions as she thought she might have been. His concern was flattering. But she was beginning to feel some amount of contempt.

"You don't get it, Josh," she said harshly. "I can do this. I'm supposed to do this."

"You're supposed to look after me," Josh said. "How are you supposed to do that if you die?"

"I won't," Donna said. "C.J and I always go out together. And anyway, C.J died once and Buffy's died twice, so I'm not going to worry about that."

She turned away from him and went to join Willow and Tara by the window. Josh looked completely confused and forlorn.

"Don't worry, mi amigo, she loves you, really," C.J said.

Josh looked just as confused. C.J sighed and punched him lightly on the arm.

Josh's cry of pain attracted the attention of everyone in shop. It even distracted Giles and Toby from their argument.

"That was nothing compared to what Donna and I are really capable of, Josh. Remember I told you not to piss us off?"

Josh nodded weakly. But he still seemed very confused.

"It's alright, you're in love with her, too. Just be discreet."

Josh blinked at her. Sam came forward and patted his friend on the shoulder.

"You'll figure it all out, later. Right now I'd like to get back to office so I can go home."

The mood on the way back was much lighter than leaving. The threat was gone, Charles's killer had been dealt with, Buffy was getting into the swing of things, Willow hadn't done any magic, there weren't any messes that needed cleaning up.


	31. Thirty One

Abbey, Spike and the President were waiting for them at the entrance when the got back. From the looks Spike and the President were throwing each other, they had been too long.

Abbey beamed at them as the walked through the door. The President and Spike seemed more relieved than happy at their arrival.

Spike went immediately to Buffy side and looked her over for any injuries.

"I'm fine," she hissed.

He ignored her, drinking in her presence. She smiled, and rolled her eyes. But she didn't move away.

"You did what you went out to do?" the President asked, aware of the Marines listening.

There were general nods and 'yes, sir's.

"Excellent," he proclaimed. "Then we should all have dinner to celebrate."

Josh, Sam, Toby, Donna and C.J immediate said that they would love to, and that it was an excellent idea.

The Scoobies all looked at them a little weirdly. The President looked at them expectantly.

"We would be honoured," Giles said, remembering his diplomatic training and noticing the look on Toby's face.

"Excellent," the President said again. "You'll be able to tell me all about your adventures. I had to talk to treasury people today."

He noticed the closed look on Leo's face and narrowed his eyes. Leo's shrug said 'we'll talk later,' he nodded at his friend.

"Ah, we aren't really dressed for dinner," Buffy said. She looked down at her own dressed. She hadn't thought about she was wearing before, but it turned out she was in a black dress, which now had a torn skirt, and was covered in dust.

The others were dressed in reasonably good, if casual clothes.

"We'll see if there's anything of Zoe's that you can borrow. I'll have someone tell Rene, and find Charlie. Seven o'clock?"

There was no arguing with the President, least of all on the time of dinner. No on bothered.

The staffers returned to the work they had hoped to ignore until Monday. Abbey lead Buffy to the Residence to find something to wear. The others found their way to the Roosevelt room, the only room they knew and collapsed on to various chairs and let the uncomfortable silence settle over them.

Xander reached out and took Anya's hand. She ran her fingers over his knuckles almost absently. Dawn was looking at Giles like she wanted him to tell her everything was going to be all right. Giles was beyond thinking 'all right' and up to 'still alive.'

Willow leant her against Tara's shoulder and let her girlfriend's hand stroke her hair. Tara murmured sweet nothings in Willow's ear, trying to get to think of anything except how automatic Buffy had seemed.

Spike wanted to eat them all. But for the pain, knocking their heads together seemed like a nice idea. Except the Bit, she was legitimately concerned. Okay, so he had a soul now, but he was Spike-with-a-soul, not William Lancaster, the Bloody awful poet. He was still the pragmatic bastard who had killed two Slayers. It was just that now he understood that there were people who missed them.

He slammed his fist on the table.

"We had to do it," he said. "If you want to feel guilty, feel bad that that Marbury bloke didn't read us all the fine print. But you need to be confident and happy for Buffy's sake. She was happy, and you took that from her, don't make her look after you on top of everything."

He stood up abruptly and left the room. No one even thought to go after him. They looked guiltily at one another.

"We shouldn't have done it," Willow said.

"It was in the book," Giles said, "it had to be done. I think that if we hadn't done it this way, we would have done it on our own and things could have been much worse."

"How?" Willow demanded in a high pitched voice.

"Were you listening to the reading?" Giles asked. "I couldn't process much, but it sounded fairly ominous."

"'The Lover will know hate, true hate'," Dawn repeated softly.

"Yes," Giles said, "And 'the power calls to it a darkness' don't tell me you hadn't considered it, Willow?"

Willow swallowed, but she didn't look away.

"She was supposed to be in hell."

"So, we be careful of assumptions," Xander said. "I like Buffy, Buffy's back, I'm glad."

Dawn cracked a grin at his use of logic, but she was crying inside. Would Buffy want to be with her? Or we she just remind her sister of the fact that she had had a chance to rest? Had she even cared? Or simply done her duty to the end?

Anya nudged Xander.

"Tell them," she whispered. "It's happy news. It'll cheer them up."

"We need to work out about Buffy first," Xander said. "And she deserves to find out with the others," he added. "She needs to hear happy news the most."

Anya nodded, mollified. But she didn't really understand the guilt they were feeling. It was like Xander said, they should just be happy that Buffy was back.

Spike stalked, ignored, through the White House. He met very few people the short path he walked. Despite his leather coat, bleached hair, and general air of menace, he had learnt a few tricks over the previous hundred years.

He came eventually to a curved wall. There was no one inside, so he entered and crossed the room quickly. The patio was shady enough and he stepped out. Figuring it must be easy enough to get to where Buffy was from here he kept walking, fooling the guards with his confidence.

At the end of the patio he came to a door he couldn't walk through. So he sat down to wait. He hoped that Abbey had enough mothering in her, after talking to him, to take Buffy in for a little while. He wondered how things would have been different if he hadn't killed his own mother, twice.


	32. Chapter Thirty Two

Buffy came back down dressed for the party. She smiled when she saw Spike. He offered his arm to her and walked back to Roosevelt Room, Abbey smiling at their backs. The top fit her best of all the options, but the dark colour did draw attention to her pale, and drawn, appearance.

Willow was first to greet them when the arrived back in the Roosevelt Room. She saw them coming down the stairs and stood up. Spike held the door open for Buffy. Willow nodded politely to him before gathering her friend into a gentle hug.

Buffy leant her head on Willow's shoulder for a moment.

"You're my best friend, Buffy," Willow said. "I hope I can be the same for you."

The Slayer pulled back slightly and looked at looked at her friend properly. She was surprised by what she saw; Willow's strength. This was not the Willow who needed reassurance and protection and offered as much as she could in return, this was Willow who knew that her friend was hurt and tired and would need some measuring of looking after in return.

Before Abbey had fussed over whether Zoë's or Ellie's clothes would fit better, she hadn't been looked after since her mom had died. It felt okay for the moment.

Dawn came up to them slowly. She stopped about two feet away from Buffy, staring at her sister and odd mixture of clothes she was wearing.

"I know, not what I'd normally wear," Buffy said, pulling at the dark material. "I may have to borrow some of your clothes when we get back home."

"No way, I'm not letting you near my wardrobe," Dawn said, with a horrified look.

Buffy giggled. She stopped abruptly when she realised what she was doing. Do I really mean that? she thought. Maybe it's just because it's not Sunnydale yet.

"Alright, Dawn, I'll respect the sanctity of your wardrobe," she said, as if by rote. "But you've got to do the same for me."

Dawn nodded eagerly. She was still being thrown too easily by Buffy's abrupt changes in temperament. It had been two weeks, and she had begun to accept that her sister wasn't going to be back. Now she was and she was treating it so lightly.

With rare insight Dawn realised that it was probably to big to process yet. She stepped forward and hugged Buffy, too.

"I wasn't gone that long," Buffy said.

Giles had the heart to smile at the vague attempt to joke. Spike patted Dawn gently on the shoulder. Buffy smiled quietly at Dawn, acknowledging the solemnity of the situation silently.

"Thanks," she said.

Dawn nodded her understanding and Buffy was relieved that she didn't have to be pleased to back, at least just yet.

"We've greeted the Buffster," Xander said. "Greetings, Buffy. So is it time to party yet?"

"By party you mean eat, don't you?" Willow said.

"Well, of course," Xander said. "But they should do really good food here. They do, don't they, Mrs Bartlet?"

"Yeah," Abbey said, trying not to smirk. "We can go up now."

Giles walked next Buffy on the way up and she appreciated the protection that that offered. But she was feeling alright. Spike was still hovering over her. She found more amusing than anything else.

Donna and the President were already there when they arrived. The President greeted them all magnanimously and enjoined them to partake of refreshments and hors-d'œuvre.

Buffy was still a little removed from the atmosphere. The others took drinks and started chatting about odd things. Giles was drawn into a conversation with the President about London. Donna approached Buffy.

"Hey," she said.

Buffy smiled. "Hey," she answered.

"I just wanted to say that I hope you don't mind being back too much, because I really like it here. I think it can be great sometimes."

"I get that. It's just that it's hard, too. It's hard and it's painful and it's everyday," she murmured.

"I know what you did," Donna said. "I dreamt of your death."

The half-smile of Buffy's face went from pensive to wistful.

"I wish I couldn't have done what you did."

"I did what I had to do," Buffy said.

"No," Donna said. "What you had to do is let your sister do what she had to do."

Buffy closed her eyes. She was hit by the sudden memory of Giles slowly leading her to the inevitable conclusion. She shook her head.

"I couldn't do that," she said.

"When I dreamt about it, I knew what you were doing, all of it. And I wished that I had the strength to do it. I also wanted very much to have people in my life like you have Dawn and Giles and Willow."

"You've got Josh," Buffy said.

She said it as something to say, and hoped to change the topic. Donna however, blushed and looked more uncomfortable then Buffy expected.

"He's, you know, my boss," Donna said.

"But you owe him your life? He's the one person you can trust to help when you need it, and one person you can complain to, even about himself?" Buffy asked, teasingly.

"Pretty much," Donna said.

C.J and Toby chose that moment to arrive. They tried to sneak in and find a drink and a corner. Giles and the President, however, claimed Toby. Buffy wouldn't let Donna leave.

"He's the person you're closest to," Buffy said. She looked up quickly to see Giles about to disagree with Toby. "Don't let him go."

"Who's Donna not letting go?" C.J asked.

Donna turned quickly to face C.J.

"Ah it's nothing, we're just talking about …"

"Josh," Buffy said. "Donna's got a thing for Josh, and I think that he's a good guy. Even if he isn't, she has superpowers now."

"You owe him your life," C.J said. "And you can trust him with anything, or any problem. You've never had any trouble telling him he's an idiot."

"Is this training I missed?" Donna asked, looking from C.J back to Buffy.

"Slayer thing," C.J said. "You'll have to take him out on patrol."

"Okay," Donna said, uncertainly.

"It'll be fine thing," C.J said. "Leo and I have worked out what we can say. You just have to keep it, all of it, out of the office."

"C.J!"

Donna blushed. C.J grinned her cat-like smile and patted Donna on the shoulder. Josh opened both doors into the room and entered, flanked by a grinning Sam and an amused Leo.

"Leo, Sam, a word," C.J said.

C.J tried to push Donna towards Josh, but the younger woman had grabbed her arm. Leo left the scene immediately to talk to Abbey. Buffy smiled politely at Josh and Sam and wandered over to Giles.

Giles smiled warmly when Buffy came up to him.

"We're just on to discussing cultural relativism in relation to demon cultures," he said, stepping back to let Buffy into the circle.

Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"If it wants to kill me, or someone else, I kill it," she said.

"You don't take into consideration the cultural beliefs and practices that inform demon actions?" the President asked.

"I don't normally think about it," Buffy said. "I interrupt the rituals, save the sacrifices. If the demons attack, I kill them. It's either them or me."

"You simply fight," the President said. There was mild reproach in his voice. Buffy bristled.

"Yeah," she said. "It's up to Giles to make sure that they need killing. I need to talk to you," she told Giles.

The President nodded. He turned to Toby an continued to quiz him on various demon laws. Having gotten over his decades long denial of what he'd stumbled into in London, he wanted to know more about it that at least the rest of his staff.


	33. Chapter Thirty Three

Giles lead Buffy to a side of the room. He picked up another little piece of food to have something to do. It seemed this might become a serious discussion. Buffy watched the other Scoobies for moment. Spike caught her eye and raised an eyebrow – asking if she was okay. She nodded.

"Buffy," Giles prompted.

"Is, ah, is… Faith too evil to let out of prison?" Buffy asked in a rush.

Giles was silent for a moment. He didn't even take a bite of his cheese.

"She gave herself up, Buffy. That shows her intentions are good. With the proper training and a supportive Watcher…"

Buffy snorted.

"With a supportive Watcher, she could do very well. especially if you willing to give up the primary Slayer position."

"I died. I want to have my life now that I have it, you know?"

"I understand that. You will have to be respect the new Watcher and answer to them in all things Slayer related, as will I. The only way it will work is if both of us are under Faith and her Watcher."

"You meant that figuratively, didn't you?" Buffy asked.

Giles choked on his cheese. Xander and Willow appeared by their side. If Buffy had shocked Giles, something might be wrong.

Buffy was very pleased with the effect she had had on her Watcher. And he hadn't seemed to mind the idea of Faith coming to Sunnydale. Maybe he'd already thought of that, she thought. Oddly, the idea of Giles thinking of those things didn't upset her. She knew that that was part of his job; think of the things she might not be able to.

She shook her head at the concerned questions from Willow and Xander. Giles was still in no state to answer.

"I want to invite Faith to Sunnydale," Buffy said. "To be the active Slayer."

It took Xander and Willow each a moment to process what she said. Buffy decided that in her still disconnected state she could take their reactions as comical.

Xander's eye twitched and he clamped a hand over it. Willow kicked him, and managed to school her features into confused understanding.

"Giles thinks it's a good idea."

Giles nodded.

"He's about to pass out," Xander said.

"That was something else," Giles said, managed to swallowed the cheese.

"Okay," Willow said. "So we get the Watcher's council to get the government to let Faith out of prison. Will they do that? She did turn herself in."

"I think we could just ask the President," Giles said.

Willow seemed almost overwhelmed by the thought. Xander was still having problems processing the first part of the conversation.

"We trust her?"

"She'll prove herself," Buffy said.

"We'll find her a Watcher," Giles said.

"Wesley?" Willow asked, sceptically.

"I think he and Faith have reached an agreement not to talk to each other," Giles said, slowly.

"She tortured him," Buffy told them.

Xander whistled. "And we still want to let her out of prison?"

"I've got some names," Giles said. "Someone who knew her first Watcher, and who has been out of England for a few years would probably be a better bet."

"Lord Marbury?" Willow asked.

She looked over to where the lanky man was defending himself to Anya, under the amused appraisal of both Abbey and Leo. Xander smiled at the sight.

"We can work out that part, later," Giles said. "But Lord Marbury is not an appropriate choice. As Lord Watcher he's not an member of this division of the Council. And he's the Ambassador for England, he has to stay here."

"Do we discuss it with the others?" Willow asked.

"No," Buffy said, shortly.

She still feel really up to convincing anyone of anything. She didn't care what anyone thought of what she wanted. She wanted a break, they had to understand that. At least she didn't have to tell them why.

Willow was half a beat behind Xander in accepting her declaration. Giles was watching them carefully, ready to defend her to them. Buffy wanted to cry, again. She had spent several minutes in the corridor of the First Family's residence in tears while Abbey sat beside her.

"So who made the decision?" Xander asked.

Giles blinked and looked at Xander with a strange respect.

"I did," he said. "I'll talk to the President."

"I'll come," Xander said. "A chance to talk to big man himself, it can be my thing."

Willow grinned at him.

"Buffy, are you okay?" Willow asked, gently, as the boys left.

Willow sounded almost professional. Buffy nodded once, succinctly, acknowledging that. Her resolve broke a moment later. Willow held her arm out. Buffy hugged her best friend closely. It felt good to be held, even when the rest of the world was so stark and hard.

Dawn had been explaining to Sam and Josh what life as the younger sibling was like when she saw Buffy collapse into Willow's arms. She quickly hurried away to lend her support.

"Sweet kid," Sam said.

"They really love each other," Josh said, watching as Buffy wrapped her arms around her sister.

Sam gripped Josh's shoulder. Charlie appeared at Sam's elbow.

"So I just wanted to ask…"

"Yes," Josh prompted.

"What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

Charlie raised a suspicious eyebrow. Sam had seemed nonchalant, but Charlie wasn't buying it. He glanced around the room.

"The bright young blonde is crying on her friends' shoulders. That guy looks like he wants to eat her. Abbey is more upset with whatever Marbury is saying than Leo. Donna and C.J have a sisterly vibe going that they didn't before."

"They didn't?" Sam asked.

"No, they had whole tension thing going over Josh, sorry man."

Josh shook his head. He's obviously missed something somewhere. It would take some thinking about. Charlie ignored him and turned back to Sam.

"You're good with words, how short can you make it?"

"Do you believe in magic?"

"No."

"Then not very short," Sam said.

Charlie sighed.


	34. Chapter Thirty Four

The President smiled warmly as he saw Giles and Xander approaching. The boy looked nervous. Toby, beginning to sound frazzled, was overjoyed at the interruption.

"Ripper, please tell the President about the laws concerning magic use," he said.

"Not strict enough, but that's probably just as well," Giles answered promptly.

The President did not look impressed.

"This isn't Harry Potter, sir," Toby continued. "There is no sure way to monitor magic use. And no organisational structure outside of witches' covens and other fairly informal groups. There are laws and prisons for magic related crimes, but conviction relies on a complaint and direct evidence. Not many people know it's magic, and few of those who do will know who to go to."

"I'm probably guilty of a few magic related crimes," Giles said. "But no who is in a position to complain ever will. I never knew that there was anyone who might be able to do something about it."

"Why not?" the President asked suspiciously.

Xander was wondered for a moment what Giles had done, until he remembered Ethan and that demon that had taken over Jenny. Probably their spell to help Buffy against Adam broke some rule, too.

"They won't complain because they don't believe in magic. And they do believe police reports. Other than that, there are sections of the army who are trained in stuff like this, and they have facilities. But I only discovered that by accident."

He gave Xander a pointed a glare, but Xander merely shrugged. It really was Buffy's fault, but no one was going to bother bringing that up now.

"We actually wanted to ask you something professionally, sir," Xander said.

He didn't like the look the President was giving Giles. There was no way he wanted to bring Riley and the army into any discussion outside of Sunnydale.

The President allowed himself to be distracted. Toby was very glad. Xander wasn't sure he liked having the full attention of the President of the United States turned on him.

"What was that?" Bartlet asked with a smile.

Xander gave to floor back to Giles to explain that wanted him to release a self-confessed murderer out of prison because she had super human strength.

"Do you have a Watcher for her?"

"I don't have anyone lined up," Giles admitted. "But I was hoping maybe Joanna Moray or Win Nasr."

Toby nodded. "Or you could ask Michael Bath."

"Yes," Giles said.

The President took Toby's acceptance as something close to a recommendation. It was certainly something he could have someone do, even if he couldn't do it himself. The thing would getting C.J and Sam to find something to tell the Press. At least they would know why.

"Will she accept?" he asked.

"I don't know," Giles answered. It was always possible that Faith's sense of remorse and redemption was stronger than her self-confidence. But they were also talking about a get out of gaol free card.

"When you arranged a Watcher and Faith has agreed to the arrangements, I will arrange for her release," the President decided.

"Thank you, sir," Giles said.

The President accepted his thanks and decided that that part of their discussion was over.

"Mr Giles, I think, in the given circumstances it would be good of you to impart some of your knowledge as a Watcher to Toby."

Toby blinked at the sentence structure. But he wasn't about to argue with that tone of voice. Giles had the same idea.

"Do you still have your school books?" he asked.

"Only the five, plus the one Roger wrote."

"Bastard," Giles muttered.

"Yes," Toby agreed.

The President lead Xander away from the bickering men. He had no choice but to follow. Faith was, probably, going to come to Sunnydale. Even if she didn't want to, Angel would be able to talk her into it.

"Anya's your girlfriend?" the President was asking.

Xander didn't have time to think about how weird the conversation was.

"Fiancée," he said.

"But you haven't announced it?"

"No."

"Because you worried about the commitment?"

"Yeah," Xander admitted absently. He ran his eyes over the room. Tara and Anya were talking to, or possibly at, Josh. C.J and Sam were talking with a young man who had to be Charlie. Willow, Dawn and Spike were with Buffy. Xander was surprised at how glad he was that Spike was there to keep an eye on Buffy.

"So tell me," the President said. Xander forced himself to concentrate. "She's smarter than you."

"Yeah!"

"And you're sure you're together for the right reasons?"

"I love her," Xander said, watching her. "I can't imagine life without her."

"And her?"

"She'd leave me if she wanted to," he said, with a chuckle. Anya wouldn't stay with him for pity.

"And you like her?"

"Yes," Xander answered, accepting the distinction inherent in the question.

"Then who are you to tell her that you know better than her?"

"It was the right thing to do at the time, although Anya did slap me. I knew that we would win. But I didn't expect Buffy to die, and then I didn't expect to get her back, and then I expected that she'd want to come back. If it's announced then everything is real, and I think it's happening too fast now. And my parents are hardly and advertisement for marriage."

The President chuckled.

"I felt the same way about Abbey. Except for the apocalypse parts. She had me marrying her within a year of us meeting, and I was going to be a priest. My dad wasn't a particularly nice man. He had little respect for my mother, and he never treated me the way you would expect a father would. But Abbey seems to think I've turned out alright."

Xander was able to grin because he hadn't quite processed who he was having this conversation with.

"But the other you have to do is talk to her about your fears. You can postpone the wedding for a couple of years. That's not unreasonable."

"Thanks," Xander said, thinking that idea through.

"Don't give her up, if you can help it. No man is his father."

The President clapped a hand on his shoulder and wandered over to Abbey.

Xander approached Anya nervously. She ginned at him cheekily.

"Hey, can we talk over here?" he asked.

Anya caught his tone and nodded soberly. Josh looked almost relieved as Xander lead Anya away and he turned back to Tara. Xander had finished saying everything that he had to say before the President gathered everyone's attention to announce that dinner was ready.


	35. Chapter Thirty Five

Dinner was, as Xander predicted, very good. Buffy wasn't sure exactly what the food was because she had never done that well in French. But she did discover that amazing things could be done with food. The subtle play of flavours, and occasional sharp bite of something, reminded her that the physical world did have its pleasures.

No one was paying her particular attention, apart from the occasional reassuring glance from Dawn or Spike. She was able to sit quietly and observe the group. After the end of the first course the President stood up and raised his glass. Everyone immediately fell silent, but they did understand that this wasn't a time they also had to stand up.

"We are to celebrate and commemorate many things," he began. "Sam, C.J, if you could explain those to Charlie. We are here celebrate life; the joy, love and beauty in the world. Today was a day great things happened, some terribly great things. Now is chance to reflect on them, to reflect on what we have learnt and begin our lives anew. To life!"

"To life."

Everyone raised their glasses and drank. Buffy nodded, smiling. Spike was smirking; he liked the irony.

"On that note, I think Xander has some words."

The President sat down and looked expectantly at Xander, three seats down. Xander stood up and coughed nervously. Anya, beside him, looked excited. Buffy, opposite him, was beginning to look concerned.

"Anya and I are going to be married," he announced, calmly.

Buffy blinked once, then grinned widely. Xander felt relieved. Anya was grinning at him again, and her eyes were full of such love and joy that his heart almost stopped.

"We haven't set a date. But we're engaged. And with everything we've done today, we though you all should know."

There was stunned silence for a few moments. Only Jed and Abbey had been prepared. It wasn't really their place to say anything, although the President was beginning to worry that his advice had been ill-timed.

Giles raised his glass, "Congratulation," he said.

Everyone else raised their glasses, toasted the couple and drank. Willow still looked particularly shocked. She recovered from the slight bout of jealously and threw Xander a particularly cheeky grin of her own; he blushed.

Anya pulled Xander back into his seat to kiss him. He was pleased to be out of the centre of attention.

Slowly the conversation picked up as the new event was drawn into the previous conversations; except Xander and Anya's. Anya kept Xander occupied for a good few minutes. Willow grinned. When Anya let Xander up for air, Willow leaned forward to hug him.

"Congratulations, Xander," she said, with all the weight of twenty years of friendship.

She knew something about Xander's parents and was glad he had the confidence to more beyond that. And she thought Anya would be very good for him.

Xander nodded happily. He turned to Buffy, still a little high from the announcement.

"Sorry for stealing your thunder, Buffy."

"Oh, no," Buffy said. "I didn't want any thunder. It's sort of loud."

"Faith's pretty much a lightening rod. She can do the storm type stuff."

"That's the plan," Buffy said, looking pleased with herself.

Anya whispered something to Xander which caused him choke on his wine. Buffy and Willow shared an amused look past their friends before continuing their conversations. Willow was talking across the table to Donna about falling for the wrong people; and had been sneaking looks at Spike and Buffy for the last few minutes. They had actually been having a pleasant conversation.

"You'll be alright, love," Spike said. "If you rest a bit. Dying really takes it out of you."

"Spike!"

"What, you disagree?" Spike asked.

"You're hardly being reverent," Buffy said.

Although, if she was being honest, it was kind of nice, in its way. Spike wasn't going to put up with her being a brat, and she didn't care enough about how he felt to worry about what his reaction was going to be. There was something comforting in the fact that she didn't have to worry about his reaction.

"I got a soul, not a personality transplant," Spike muttered.

"Good," Buffy said. "I'd miss you."

"Thanks, love," Spike said, with no small measure of defensive amusement.

"No, I mean—" Buffy said. She tried to work out what it was she actually meant. Spike was Spike, and trying to work out what that meant was difficult. But he was able to understand her when she didn't understand herself.

"I get you," Spike said hastily.

He squeezed her hand gently to show his support. Buffy smiled gently at him. It was a long time since anyone had felt William worth anything. And no one had ever thought that of Spike.

Sam and C.J had managed to produce a coherent account of who the other people at the table were. They were less successful at explaining what had happened. Charlie still thought they were having him on.

Willow decided that argument happening next to her was too annoying. She abandoned Donna to Spike and turned to Charlie.

"Magic is about balance, and drawing on the power in the Earth."

"So you can really do things?" Charlie asked.

Willow held out her hand and set her expression. Slowly the saltcellar floated across the table and hit her palm.

"Okay," Charlie said. "That's pretty cool. But that can't be why we're here."

Charlie looked at Sam for an explanation. Sam wasn't sure enough of the answer to actually describe what had happened, he looked to C.J.

Willow broke the silence first. She managed to put the main ideas into four sentences.

"Wow," Charlie said. "Vampires, magic, and super strong little women."

"C.J and Donna are super strong, now," Willow reminded him.

"That'll explain the whole new sisterly vibe," he said slowly.

Sam raised a questioning eyebrow at C.J, but she nodded.

Charlie eyed the saltcellar thoughtfully. "And I'll be more careful of Abbey."

"I thought you and Donna were good friends," Josh said.

His concern touched C.J deeply. He could be so sweet sometimes.

"Oh, we are. But our claims on you clash."

Sam looked fascinated, "How?" he asked.

Josh was beginning to think he really wanted to run.

"I get the big sister privileges of vetting perspective girlfriends."

Sam blinked like things suddenly seemed to make sense. Charlie nodded. Josh refused to understand.

"You do know that you're in love with Donna, right?" Sam insisted.

Josh shook his head, "She's my assistant," he hissed. "Like you had Kathy, we had that conversation."

"And you remember I said that it was different?"

"She's my assistant," Josh repeated.

He glanced nervously at Donna. She wasn't sitting that far from them. Although she was currently arguing with Spike.

"I think it's great," C.J said, as if that should be enough. Josh didn't think so.

"So do I," Tara said.

Josh turned quickly to face her, and ignore C.J

"It's obvious you feel for each other," Tara went on quietly. "At least it for me."

"Tara can read people's auras," Dawn explained.

Josh hit his head against the table. C.J shared a triumphant smile with Sam.

"Rupert, a word in your ear?" Marbury asked suddenly.

Giles was glad to listen to something other than Dawn and Tara's advice on how Josh should approach Donna.

"My Lord," he acquiesced.

"I want you to do something for me."

"If I can," Giles agreed.

Marbury was delighted with the response.

"Take this book," he said.

He pulled the little book out of his jacket pocket and made to hand it over. Giles pulled away.

"My Lord, I really couldn't."

"You would refuse an order?" Marbury asked, with a carefully raised eyebrow.

"No," Giles admitted.

"Than I order you," Marbury said. "I've been doing this long enough. You will need the book."

Giles accepted the small leather bond volume. He held in reverently. He carefully opened it to the title page. He frowned at the hand written inscription.

"Who appointed you Lord Watcher?" he asked slowly.

"Her Majesty Elizabeth, Queen of England," Marbury said.

"Who came before you?" he asked.

"Walsingham," Marbury said.

"How old… forgive me my Lord."

"You're right, that question is not relevant. It's not the one you wanted to ask, anyway."

"What do you want me to do?" Giles asked.

"Just read the book," Marbury ordered.

The President watched the table. With Abbey sitting on one side of him he couldn't ask Leo what he knew. With Leo there, he couldn't ask Abbey why she had chosen him to run to. Given the day and the last two weeks he'd had he was surprised that he was able to think that much.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Abbey, Toby and Buffy had fallen into a mild game of one-upmanship. He was relieved to see Xander and Anya talking seriously. The only one upset seemed to be Donna. She was shaking her head vehemently at whatever Spike was telling her.

"Leo," he asked. He nodded down the table. "What's that?"

Leo looked at them too. He suddenly smiled and shook his head.

"I think he's telling her what to do about Josh."

The President tried to process that for a minute. There was a vampire at his table, in outlandish clothes, giving one of his staff relationship advice. But then, it was to Donna on how to deal with Josh.

"Good," he said.

Leo nodded. "C.J and I agree," he said.

The President sighed happily. "I think the meal is almost over."

"Yes, sir," Leo grinned.


	36. Chapter Thirty Six

The Scoobies were reluctant to leave the White House. No one was terribly sure how to treat Buffy; she wasn't easy to read anymore. Buffy didn't know where they were going. She was reluctant to leave C.J, who was so confidant and knew so much. Leaving also meant going back to the world that was fighting all the time and never winning, or getting to rest, even when you died. Maybe if she could stay here it wouldn't be real, and she'd like to learn more about Marbury.

The night air was still fine, and Buffy was beginning to feel on edge again so the group decided to walk the blocks to where they would be spending the night. The President offered the cars, but Buffy convinced him that they would be safe.

That left only the obligatory milling around and saying goodbye to everyone several times.

Marbury bestowed his compliments to Leo with a effusive, "Excellent show you put on, Gerald."

"Thank you, you Lordship," Leo said warily. "I had very little to do with it."

"Don't let them know that," Marbury whispered. "It gives them ideas."

"I won't," Leo promised.

"Good man."

Leo rolled his eyes at Josh, who was sniggering as he made his own goodbyes to Marbury.

"I do hope we meet again soon, Josh."

"Yes, your Lordship," Josh said, with quite a cheeky look at his boss.

"And Donna is a gorgeous woman, be sure you don't scare her away."

"Yes, your Lordship."

Marbury caught Leo's eye over Josh's shoulder and winked. Leo turned away to hide his own grin from Josh and focused instead on how everyone else was going.

Abbey took Tara and Willow away from where they were assuring Donna that she could do anything and everything she wanted to.

"Sarah Mitchell," she told them.

Willow was feeling nervous again, and completely unable to question the First Lady of the United States.

"Who?" Tara asked.

"Sarah Mitchell, she's the most senior witch I know in California. This is her number. Call her and she'll be able to get you set up with your local coven."

Abbey handed over the piece of paper. Willow stared at it for a moment. It represent real and structured teaching. She would be able to ask all those tricky little questions you couldn't ask anyone you knew very well.

Tara smiled too.

"I promise I'll write," she said, quietly.

"You'd better, girl," Abbey said. "I don't want to loose you again."

Tara smiled a little weakly. Abbey pulled her into a tight hug. She grabbed Willow, too, whispering something to her that made her laugh.

Abbey released them and went to find Buffy.

The President released Xander's hand and went to shake Tara's and tell Willow the duty of being a friend to someone who may have lost the meaning of life.

"So, Dawn, you have to tell anyone who asks that Sam is cuter than he looks in pictures," Charlie said.

"Charlie!" Sam protested.

"Just because it annoys Josh. You can also tell them that obviously the best looking guy in the White House is me."

"After the President," Dawn insisted.

"Well, if you want to play it like that…"

"She's playing like that, Charlie. Do good, Dawn, sometimes it's easier than not."

"Oh, I get that," Dawn said. She spared a glance to where Abbey was talking very earnestly to her sister, but she grinned at the guys.

"Okay, who else do I have a chance to convince?" San asked, casting around the Lobby for unfamiliar faces.

He nudged Charlie and nodded over to where Donna was farewelling Xander and Anya.

"See you, Dawn," he said.

"It was good to meet you," Charlie said, holding out his hand.

"You, too," Dawn said. And she got to shake hands with Deputy Sam Seaborn, and Charlie.

Donna abandoned Xander and Anya to Sam and Charlie and avoided Spike as she made her way across the room to collect Buffy from Abbey. Buffy looked calmer and stronger than she had earlier in the day. More vulnerable, too, though.

But if she knows and the accepts that… Donna thought, convinced once again that there was something more to Abbey; well, of course, she knew what now.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah."

"I just wanted to know if I would be able to maybe email you if I had questions about things?"

"Slaying things, or Josh things, because there's no way you want my relationship advice."

"It was the Slaying things," Donna said.

"Sure, I can do that. I don't have my college email address anymore, but if you give me yours, I can get Willow to set me up with my own."

"Sounds good," Donna agreed, reaching for the pen and paper she had to have somewhere on her.

"I look forward to hearing from you."

"Me, too," Buffy said, realising that she meant it. She smiled a final farewell to Donna only looked over to C.J, who was still talking to Giles. She went over to them, hoping to talk to her sister-Slayer.

"I'm sorry that we didn't get to talk, Claudia," Giles said. "Perhaps we should rectify that at some point."

C.J smiled. "Because that would be fun," she said.

"It was quite a shock to find you alive. But I think I understand something of what you felt now."

He glanced at Buffy as she approached.

"Thank you," C.J said. "It would be good to talk about Miles with someone."

Buffy stepped up to them with a polite smile. C.J stepped out of her conversation with Giles, who left to talk to Toby again.

"It was good to meet you, Buffy."

"People keep saying that," Buffy said. "Which is strange, because you wouldn't have met me if I hadn't have died."

"But Abbey found her niece."

"And Tara her aunt, so the trip wasn't too bad. Are you okay fighting now?"

"If I'd know Toby would have believed that I had fought off vampires than I probably would have kept fighting."

Buffy didn't want to say anything in response to that so she smiled instead.

"Ah, take care of Donna," she said.

"I will. Let Dawn take care of herself," C.J said.

"Yeah, okay," Buffy said.

"Farewell, good luck, happy hunting."

"Dracula called it hunting," Buffy said, remembering.

"I would have like to meet Dracula," C.J said, with a sly grin.

Buffy felt better at the tacit assumption that she had won.

"You might get to, but he's a tough one to fight," Buffy said impishly.

C.J chuckled, and clasped Buffy's had as a fellow soldier.

As she walked away, Buffy reminded herself again that Dawn would have had to look after herself if she had stayed dead. Trying to convince herself that it made sense she was surprised by Marbury's approach.

"Miss Summers, I understand you wish to abdicate your place to Miss Hughes."

"Faith? Yeah."

"A wise decision, it allows one to keep one's head. I have given your Watcher my book, if you ever want to know more about what is happening it is a fascinating read."

"I don't read Latin," Buffy told him.

"What? Oh, yes. I had forgotten that people don't learn it like they used to. Oh, well, I suppose it's time we had it translated. Coming back is a difficult adjustment. Know that this is a different place for your time away from it."

"Abbey said much the same thing. I will."

"A wise woman. Both of you in fact, but I must say goodbye before we leave."

He wandered off again. And once he had said goodbye to Abbey and the President; Sam, Josh and Charlie had each convinced Buffy that they were better looking; and Spike had kissed Donna's hand; the two groups were ready to sperate themselves from each other again.

The President, his family, and staff stood together and watched the others disappear down the road.

The Scooby gang followed Marbury's lead through the D.C night despite the fact that he had very little appreciation of the danger they might be in. The atmosphere was reminiscent of a night patrol in Sunnydale and slowly the group was able to relax into a familiar dynamic while Marbury argued with Giles had the head of the procession.


	37. Chapter Thirty Seven

The group that arrived at the Embassy house was almost as together as it had ever been; possibly more so because Xander had begun to accept Spike as part of the gang in the aftermath of Buffy's death. Despite the travel, the day, the night and the spell, no one of them was really ready to go to sleep. There was too much that couldn't be said, and too many questions that couldn't be asked.

Marbury lead them through the corridors to the back.

"We have three double rooms, and one twin. You'll have to work out who sleeps where yourself, sorry. It's rare that we have so many guests here."

Xander opened a door at random, into the twin room and everyone took places on the various pieces of furniture. Spike leant himself against the dressing table, Dawn pulled herself up onto the chest of drawers.

Marbury pulled Buffy aside for a moment as Willow and Tara snuggled together on one bed and Giles propped himself on it against the corner of the wall. They were waiting for Buffy.

"A goodnight to you all," Marbury said as he ushered Buffy back into the room.

He closed the door behind her and Buffy cast a speculative eye over Spike and Giles before taking a place against the base of the bed Xander and Anya had claimed.

"When does our plane get in?" Buffy asked.

"Around midnight," Giles said.

"And my room…?"

"There's a guy from the government in your house at the moment," Willow said.

"From the government?" Buffy repeated.

"It's okay, he's just there to look after Sunnydale while we were here," Tara said.

Buffy nodded in relief.

"Okay. So we're going home, and we'll do what we always did. But I want Faith to come back to Sunnydale and be the Slayer."

Willow, Xander and Giles had already gotten over their shock. Buffy had made her decision and was able to watch the others.

Spike blinked once, visibly worked the thought through his mind and then nodded. Tara looked nervous, but was reassured by Willow's calm acceptance. Anya narrowed her eyes at Xander as if to make sure that he hadn't orchestrated the whole thing.

Whatever argument Xander had in response to her accusation was interrupted by an outraged shout from Dawn.

"She tried to kill you!"

Buffy felt herself almost split in half. She found she couldn't just override Dawn's concerns, however much she had wanted this to be easy.

"And I beat her, Dawn. I put her in hospital for months. And when she came out I beat her again. Angel supports her, she turned herself in, and I don't want to fight anymore."

Dawn slid off the chest of drawers and scrambled across the floor to where Buffy was. She squashed himself next to her sister and rested her head on Buffy's shoulder. Buffy automatically put her arm around Dawn and stroked her hair.

"You'll be okay?" Buffy asked.

She was disappointed to discover that she was justifying her decision. But looking after Dawn was a familiar, and comforting thing, and maybe it would hold her to this world again.

Dawn nodded. Buffy kissed her temple, relieved that things were okay.

"You'll fight her if she goes bad again, though, won't you?"

"Definitely."

"Buffy's back, Faith's good, lets talk about happier things," Anya said. "Willow rebuilt the Buffy-bot."

"How is she?" Buffy asked.

"Okay," Willow said. "There are still some bugs to work through. The pun generator needs some work done on it. The government guys were quite interested in her."

Buffy grinned at Willow's pride. It was good to see excited nerdy Willow again. The last time she'd seen Willow she'd been rescuing Tara's mind from Glory's. It was strange to see think how little everyone had changed.

Dawn was still her little sister, who needed her. Tara and Willow were still beautiful together. Anya could be wildly inappropriate, without actually being wrong. Xander was still solid dependable guy; Giles still knew stuff and Spike could get on her nerves. Although, apparently, Giles knew more than he should, and Spike was a going to teach her something worth knowing.

Buffy shook her head and focussed on the conversation.

"But how long will it take them to get out of the house?" Anya asked.

"They're pretty sharp," Tara said. "I imagine they can leave without a trace."

"Better than the army," Xander said.

"Better be," Spike said.

"I'm sure that you won't notice that they were there," Giles said.

He seemed to be falling asleep. Dawn was leaning against Buffy's shoulder, eyes closed. Buffy closed her own eyes and leant against the top of Dawn's head.

"It'll be fine," Willow said. "We'll be moving out anyway, so we can just take our stuff when we get there…"

"What?" Buffy demanded.

She sat up sharply and Dawn let out a shout as she fell over.

"Willow said she was moving out," Buffy explained.

"You can't do that," Dawn said, in much the same way that Faith was not allowed out of jail.

"Dawnie…" Tara began.

"Would you have moved out if Buffy hadn't have come back?"

"She had to come back," Willow said quietly.

Both Dawn and Giles turned incredulous looks at Willow. Buffy felt a cold stab of fear run through her. Her eyes met Spike's, and she was reassured by the certainty and resolution in his. She knew that he would be there for her.

"Would you have left?" Dawn demanded.

"No, of course, not," Tara said.

"Then why are you leaving now?" Dawn's voice had gone from resolute to petulant in half a non-heart-beat. But Buffy agreed.

"You can stay," she said. "It will be nice, to have more people around. And better for Dawn, getting her off to school, and when I go patrolling."

"Or just cooking," Dawn said.

"It'll be cheaper than college," Buffy said.

She saw Willow smile and nod, so closed her eyes again, relieved that everything was going to be okay.

Spike asked after their Coven and Willow was eagerly explaining about the contact the First Lady had given them before anyone noticed that Buffy had fallen asleep. She was snoring quietly on Dawn's shoulder. Everyone else suddenly became very quiet.

"It is late," Tara said. "We should go to bed. Willow and I will take one of the other rooms."

She helped Willow up and they said their good nights. Everyone smiled tired but content smiles in response. Xander gave Buffy's shoulder a gentle squeeze as he stood, but she didn't stir. He and Anya left just as quietly.

"We'll let the girls take the double bed?" Giles suggested, although he didn't relish even sharing a room with Spike.

He looked at them. Dawn was mostly asleep, too. Spike pushed himself away from the dressing table and stood up straight.

"No," he said.

Giles gave him his best, 'and what do you mean by that?' eyebrow.

"The Slayer's sleeping with me. If she dreams any she'll better knowing she disturbed me, rather than the Nibblet."

"It's okay, Spike," Dawn said, forestalling any argument Giles might have made. "Giles and I can share."

She moved around a bit so she could push Buffy to her feet.

"Hmmphle," Buffy said, as Spike picked her up.

Dawn climbed to her feet and smiled at the way her sister had snuggled into Spike's chest. Spike's expression dared her to say anything, but the undertone was amused, not dark. Dawn pressed a kiss on Buffy's cheek before Spike carried her out the door.

She smirked at Giles. Giles decided that he was too tired to worry about it at the moment. Spike had made a point. It was worth remembering that he had a soul now; and was more comfortable with himself than Angel had been. He obviously cared for Buffy, and had been affected by her death. Giles gave up rationalising Spike and took his pyjamas to the bathroom to change. At least Dawn would be an easier roommate than the vampire.


	38. Chapter Thirty Eight

Leo had sent the rest of the staff home after the Sunnydale people had left. The President had sent Leo home in their wake and turned to his wife.

"Can we talk now, Abbey?" he asked.

"Can you listen to me, now?" she said. "And don't take anything out on Leo."

Jed narrowed his eyes at her, but she chuckled.

"Come on, Jethro, let's to bed."

Everyone arrived late to work on Monday morning. Leo, Sam, Josh, C.J and Donna ended up meeting in the entrance lobby.

"We've really got to back to work, now?" Josh asked. "Couldn't we declare it a national holiday or something. We killed a demon. And didn't you bring the dead back to life?"

"Only because we had to," Donna said.

"And you only know about that because you can't survive without Donna," C.J said.

Both Josh and Donna looked at her, slightly shocked. C.J rolled her eyes.

"Seriously, I'm going to lock in a room one day. Soon."

Josh and Donna shared a shocked look and quickly turned away.

It was Leo's turn to roll his eyes.

"You're going back to work now. Sam, I'm sure Toby has stuff for you write. And you need to meet with Wilson about Welfare, Josh."

"So it wasn't a dream," Sam said. "I really went out last night and saw a woman who had been dead chop the head off a yellow monkey thing which then disappeared?"

"Yes," Leo said, sighing. "And C.J and Donna have a sacred calling to kill Vampires, the First Lady is a registered witch, and the President is running for re-election. Go to work. We need the next two weeks to run as smoothly as possible."

Leo walked away, Sam and Josh decided to leave C.J and Donna alone.

"Will we go out tonight?" Donna asked.

"I'd like to," C.J said.

"Eight o'clock, then? I've got enough here for a basic patrol."

"Ask the boys if they want to come," C.J suggested.

Donna nodded, and they went back to their respective actual jobs.

Toby was waiting for C.J in her office. She ignored him as she sorted through her briefing notes and separated everything concerning the unexplained deaths.

"How are you?" Toby eventually asked.

"Well, you?"

"C.J?"

"Toby."

"Okay. Did you dream at all last night?"

"No, thank you. I slept very well. So well in fact that I slept through my alarm. Is there a reason you're here?"

He was sprawled on her couch, and C.J had to wonder how long he had been there.

"It is possible with the death of the demon that the Press are going to be asking questions. Even about Charles Owens's death, and certainly about the woman who died on Friday."

He was watching her carefully. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see a Slayer or the Press Secretary and was surprised to find, well, C.J.

"I can do that Tobus. The President's condolences to the families, all questions to the relevant authority. Until we have evidence of cause of death and perpetrator, there is little we can say about the crime. We're not even sure that they are crimes."

"Okay," Toby said.

He pulled himself up and turned to leave.

"Toby?" C.J asked, her tone telling him that she there was more to his presence than asking questions he knew she knew the answer to.

"I have to meet with Andy on Thursday. About the language in the speech."

"Yeah."

"So, I'll have to tell her about us, or the spell, or something. She'll notice that something's different."

"She's your ex-wife, Toby, not mine. Tell her what you need to."

"Okay. I just thought I'd give you a heads up."

"You know I'll be talking to her anyway, right?" C.J asked.

Toby nodded. C.J sat down at her desk and decided that she was going to stare blankly at her wall for a minutes before preparing for the briefing. Andy would call her on Friday, depending on what Toby told her. And, as he had neglected to make specific, the Press were going to be asking more questions about the MS now that the demon was no longer protecting people's secrets.

She picked up her briefing book with a sigh. It was back to the MS and Haiti and the re-election. Hopefully there would be Vampires out tonight.

Toby was still standing in her doorway.

"What's wrong?" she demanded.

"Leo's bringing in Bruno Gianelli," he said.

C.J nodded. "Good. We don't have the metal power to do it all on own in the time we have."

Toby scowled, but finally left C.J to her wall gazing.


	39. Chapter the Thirty Ninth

Sam and Josh were having a much more enjoyable morning doing whatever it was they did on a regular basis. Monday was shaping up to be a very average day, as far as they went, and they were looking forward to getting together at lunch to go over what they had learnt the day before.

Josh was dramatising what he had seen of the spell, and C.J and Donna's fight, using his fries and a few lettuce leaves. Donna watched them from Josh's doorway for a moment.

"It didn't do like that," Donna said, as the chip representing her flew across the table and onto the floor.

"C.J and I weren't at full strength, so we weren't throwing each other. And she's taught me how to land."

She picked the chip up off the floor and threw it in the waste paper basket, then sat down on the desk.

"We're patrolling tonight, do you want to come?"

"Patrolling?"

"C.J and I will be doing a tour of a few cemeteries and making sure that none of the dead people are undead people."

"Like Spike," Sam said.

"Well, no, Spike had a soul," Donna said.

She was going to launch into the explanation of Vampires and souls and demons and evilness that C.J and Toby had provided her with, but decided against it. Sam and Josh had both just accepted her statement and looked as if that were the limit of their imaginations.

"Do you want to come and see me and C.J kill Vampire's tonight?" she asked.

Josh looked at Sam, who shrugged.

"Yeah," he said.

Donna left them to find Margaret.

While C.J was preparing for her second briefing of the day, the Scooby gang were just waking up.

It took Buffy a few moments to work out where she was. The room was pleasantly dark, and she felt comfortable, but it was not familiar. She rolled over and came face to face with Spike's still, sleeping form. She watched him for a few moments, but he didn't wake, so she got out of bed and went in search of a towel and a shower.

He hadn't undressed her, which was good of him, but she felt a bit pressed into her clothes now.

Everyone else appeared for breakfast within the next half an hour or so, even Spike, who sat in the darkest corner of the room. Willow spent her time planning their afternoon's sightseeing while the other packed and prepared themselves to return home.

Spike wished them all an enjoyable afternoon and sloped towards a television. He decided that he'd watch the briefing, observe the Slayer in her natural habitat. And it truly was.

C.J had as much confidence behind the Press Podium as Buffy had holding the blunt of a stake. But the Press were idiots, Spike decided. There was something jointly dumb about them. They didn't really care about the news, or the strange deaths that had hit their city over the last weeks. They were much more interested in putting this calm, intelligent and confident woman and the spot and ask her questions the President's state of mind.

He saw it coming. The mongrels played off each other and suddenly the room was silent and she had nowhere to go but back off the podium and into the arms of, well, the people she was supposed to stop this happening to.

Hardly a happy thought, Spike thought as stood up and paced across the room. When Buffy had had her confidence cut from under her she had she had run to him, and question about how to learn from her mistakes.

Spike sighed. He wanted to go back to Sunnydale where he could take his crypt back over from whoever had nicked it in three days he'd been gone.

As far as he was concerned, dealing with the nasties on the Hellmouth was preferable to ever noticing anything political.

The others had pretty much the same idea. Half a day looking at the sights in the capital had been nice. But not as thrilling as even Willow had thought it would be, given that they, with the President, his wife and their staff had raised the dead in the basement the day before.

"Do we have to read anything more?" Anya asked. "I'm hungry."

"And tired," Dawn added.

Willow grimaced.

"Okay, we have dinner now," she said, putting a line through the list she'd made of things to see.

"I'm older than anything built here," Anya said, trying to justify her reaction.

Several people near them eyed her and moved away.

"Well, I am. And you can come back with Tara and actually visit the White House if you want to. I've missed a lot of sales coming here, we need to reopen the shop."

"We still have five and a half hours until the plan leaves," Giles said.

"But we need to pack, and actually get the airport, and check in that could take, oh, all of an hour and a half?"

"We'll have dinner, and then head back, okay?" Willow suggested.

"Sounds good," Buffy said, grinning. Everyone felt better, then and locked on to the search for food.

Buffy was even looking forward to the familiar sights of Sunnydale.


	40. Chapter XL

Buffy tried to sleep on the plane in an effort to guard against her nerves. She kept getting distracted by Giles cursing at his book, or Dawn and Spike's game of hangman. In the end she watched the lights come and go outside the window and let the noises wash over her in their familiarity.

Although Spike being so domestic wasn't something she had encountered before. She couldn't remember now, what he had been like before. Buffy sighed and closed her eyes.

Donovan zipped his suitcase closed and pulled it out to their car. Sandra had already packed her things, and had begun loading their equipment as well. Duncan was packing up his computer equipment and shutting down the robot. Donovan hoped that Willow would let them take her with them as they had the real Slayer back now, apparently. He wasn't going to argue with any of the higher-ups on that one.

The last thing that remained was to collect Warren Meers. It had taken him half a day to abandon his friends and accept their offer.

"Duncan," Donovan called back up the stairs. "We're going to collect Meers now."

"Have fun with that," he called.

Donovan grimaced as he closed the door and turned to face Sandra.

"Shall we," he offered.

She grimaced, too, but closed the trunk and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Have you run a check on this man?" she asked.

"Don't need to. We're holding him as a secure operative."

"That means he'd be in prison if he weren't working for us, right?"

"That's right. But he doesn't know that. Here we are."

They pulled up at the address Meers had given them and stepped cautiously up to the front door. It opened before they could knock to reveal Warren Meers with an away bag and an evil genius grin.

"This is Special Agent Hall," Donovan said. "We're going to the airport to pick up the Slayer and her friends. Before we do that we'll be leaving you with Agents O'Leary and Matthews and collecting the Slayer's car. If you're ready, we'll leave now."

Meers followed them to car, behaving as if they were his attendants or something. Donovan let him have his way for the moment, even Sandra seemed more amused by him than irritated.

They arrived at the airport just as the flight was landing. Donovan only a few minutes to prepare himself before being confronted by the Slayer face to face. The first thing that struck him was how different she was to the robot made in her image. She was more confident, older, and looked entirely more trustworthy.

"Good morning, Ms Summers. It's a pleasure to meet you," Donovan said. "My name is Simon Donovan."

Buffy smiled and shook his hand, and then Sandra's.

"How's my town?" she asked.

"I found it a very pleasant place to stay," Donovan said.

Buffy snorted in amusement.

"We didn't find any overt demon activity."

"That's nice. How many vampires were there?"

Donovan answered her questions on the demon population and what had happened in the four days since they had arrived, then on how he had come to fight demons and what his connection to the government was, and then if he knew anyone called Riley Finn or had heard of the Initiative.

He was feeling a little worn out by the time they got back to her house. Buffy waited to be allowed back into her home and he stepped back to talk to Willow.

"We'll be taking Warren with us when we leave," he said.

Willow grinned broadly, delighted and relieved.

"We'd also like to take the robot with us. Your work on her is an interesting as Meers's."

"Really? Because you know, I just did what I had to, to make her bearable."

"Can we have her?" Donovan asked, cutting off the babble. "Well, actually we'd buy her off you."

"You'd have to buy her off Buffy, I think. I don't think she'd say no. Spike bought it off Warren, but she sort of claimed it when we discovered it."

Spike had taken Buffy's bags out of the trunk and followed her up the stairs to her room. Buffy had rolled her eyes, but seemed pleased. Willow caught Tara's eye and nodded to them. That would take a bit of getting used to.

Duncan had packed up everything and was waiting only to load it into the cars. Ben had taken Meers down the street on the pretext of running a last check on their basic recording kit so he wouldn't be there when the others returned home.

Buffy wandered through the house while everyone else congregated in the living room.

"Buffy, I think they're leaving now," Dawn called.

Buffy came back, smiling apologetically. She stopped when she saw the robot standing next to Duncan.

"We'd like her to come with us, if you don't mind," Duncan said.

Buffy grinned. "You'd really take her? She kind of gets on my nerves."

"With compensation, of course," Donovan said.

"Oh, I don't care about the money. Okay, maybe I do. But she'd leave with you now?"

"Agent Donovan says that I will be very useful to him," the Buffybot said. "I like being useful. Although I will have to leave Dawn and Spike."

"Take her," Buffy told Donovan.

She held her hand out to the robot.

"Goodbye, Buffy," she said. "I'm glad that you'll be useful."

"Goodbye Buffy," the robot replied. "I'm glad that you are no longer dead."

"Thanks."

The Buffy-bot insisted on saying goodbye to everyone. Then the Agents themselves had to leave in order to get back to LA in time to debrief their commander there before Donovan flew to Washington to talk to the President. By the time Xander, Anya, Giles and Spike left it was approaching dawn.

"I'm definitely sleeping now," Buffy said. "You don't have to go to school tomorrow, Dawn, we'll have pancakes for breakfast at lunch time."

Dawn smiled as she got ready for bed; life was back the way it was supposed to be and everything was going to be alright.

Donovan's meeting with the President was squashed between a security briefing and a meeting with the Vice President. The President welcomed him an obvious relief from an already tiring day.

"How is Sunnydale?" Bartlet asked.

"Good, sir. There doesn't appear to much going on at the moment."

"And the Slayer was well when she arrived?"

"She seemed well, if tired, sir. Certainly comfortable to be home."

"Very good. She's had a trying couple of weeks."

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

"We've taken Warren Meers as a secure operative, and we now have a robot that likes to slay vampires."

The President chuckled.

"Would you like to meet the Slayers we have here?" he asked. "I'm sure C.J would appreciate the distraction."

"It's okay, sir. I've met enough Slayers to last me a while."

"Okay, then. Thanks for helping us out."

"Thank you, sir."

Donovan left and the President sighed. It had been an almost pleasant, and certainly interesting, interlude from the political concerns that had just crashed on them again. No doubt C.J would kill some things tonight; the President certainly hoped so.


End file.
